A 100% Raw Vegan Success Story

Well, I tweeted this story a couple of hours ago, it got immediate traction in terms of mentions and retweets, then Robb Wolf retweeted it and things really took off. So, based on that, I figured I better just blog it. This is about a tragedy, not ridicule -- except for those so deserving.

This morning I got a WTF? email from reader Clarice with a link to this raw vegan "success" story over at 30 Bananas a Day. It comes complete with before and after photos. Here's some highlights of 17-yr-old Harout's story.

I first got introduced to a better diet of mostly vegetarian foods with the occasion of some fish here and there by my high school assistant basketball coach for the Varsity team. i stuck to that for the course of my basketball season and stuck to it ever since i came to this site and moved on to the raw food movement. I was feeling so good on a vegetariandiet and looking so good that i believed that going on a raw food low fat raw vegan would make things even better for me with all the success stories.

So, he went from a diet that included cooked animal products to one that excluded them completely and...

I never jumped to high fat raw first. I barely tried being vegan for the time in transition. I just jumped straight in and have been 100% ever since mid September and have only had cooked plain brown rice pasta a couple times down the line. Every time i ate the cooked food though im like why am i eating it? It gives me energy yeah, but it doesnt taste good.

After 5 months of living this lifestyle i reversed my diagnosis of hypothyroidism. I took the pills for the first week and after that left it, on the verge of wanting to cure it myself. It worked, i shared with family my success stories and have influenced my households to go vegan and my brother a raw vegan as well. Its truely an amazing thing once you get into it. Its not just about diet anymore , i really realise the true aspects of this lifestyle and its NATURES GIFT. It really is, i wouldnt do anything nor let anybody do anything to change my insight on the way i live and my diet.

Well, so far so good, I guess. Or is it?

I have received great benefits and realise the only downfall is that i have gained a significany amount of fat, but i accept the fact of my body storing up what its been missing for a few years now and i respect it.I put my body through hell now its my price to pay for recovery. ...

A few cons that ive been going through lately and like i said respect for the time being of going through the struggles. I cant expect to become the hulk right away. It takes time to feel good , 8 months is just a drop in the ocean to my 16 years of abuse. Another con is slight acne on the forehead, being someone who never had acne in the past.

Like i said these are all little things that take time to recover frrom and im not going to whine about it. I believe in nature and this is as natural as it gets. Ive given up cosmetics as well.

Another thing i'd like to mention is that i used to be the fastest player on my basketball team. Played on A division for my traveling team while i was in high school and thats a good level. Now i play B cause i cannot keep up and even though i am in the starting five, i am not the top player of my team. I cant train as hard as i used to, the gained percentage of fat slows me down a bit. For the meantime i suppose. ...

Even though this last paragraph may be quite negative, i want to share my emotions one way or another, cause things arent perfect and i must share that. I think there is a big difference to feeling good and being able to perform good. I feel good , there is no question about that , but i suppose i am in the process of regaining where i cant perform as well yet. It really puts me down sometimes but i know there is no other option of just picking myself up and aiming for the best i can be day in and day out. Basketball has always been my true love and it just gets me how i let it get to me. Not being able to perform the same ways. It seems its a drag for me moving my feet up , down , slides on defense. I dont know, i hope i see in the light on the other end cause its just a tough time for me right now, still being in high school and ruining my hopes of college ball has been a tough sacrifice.It's not the fact that the lifestyle isnt the answer to health. Its not that at all. But we all go through cleansing and elimination at some point. And fininshing my high school career very poorly in regionals ,being one of the best players. Is really dissapointing to me , it really is. Once again , i dont blame the lifestlye. Its just a sacrifice of present success VS. future health. As much as i think its the wrong thing to do morally , i shouldve waited and stuck with cooked vegan so i didnt do dramatic change to my body right away with basketball in the picture. My bodys foreign to this and thats the only issue. Every day im doing something better and better for myself. It just draws me out of success in what i love doing temporarily. For the time being i guess.

[emphasis added to highlight denial and self delusion]

Well, there you have it. And now, here's the dramatic, 8-month anti-transformation of a poor, ambitious 17-yr-old young man. On the left, you have Harout as he looked on a diet that he called "vegetarian," but included fish and whatever other animal sources, and his food was cooked. To the right you have his 8-month results after being 100% raw, plant based, excluding all animal sources of nutrition. You can click for the full-size image, where the acne problem is more apparent.

Before (left) and After (right)

Now, this would certainly remain a tragedy, especially given his passion of being a top basketball player on his HS team, with serious aspirations for a college scholarship, but he's only 17 and this condition could be reversed just as quickly as it progressed. So not to worry, right? ...because the 30 Bananas a Day crowd are there for him, there to help him for his sake; to point him in the right direction.

Let's take a look at some of the comments.

Maybe this is that adjustment period for you.

Perhaps your body is just 'rehydrating' after so many years of being dehydrated. I betcha it's all water! ... look at all of the muscle you've put on!

So your super flexing in the top shot and 'letting it go' in the bottom shot. You gotta compare flex shots with flex shots otherwise its like comparing a limp banana to an erect banana! lol! [Durianrider]

THIS IS WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT!! You are still YOU, no matter your physical appearance! You are loved!

...and then its BANG! CRASH BOOM! and we come back to earth and people around us blame the fruit. ... ITS NEVER THE FRUITS FAULT LOL! [Durianrider]

...how old are you in that top shot? You have the body of a 40 year old gym rat. [Durianrider]

Like I said HM, your on the right track now and just gotta let your body 'do its thing' as you do your thing. Keep eating right, eating lots, staying hydrated, GETTING EARLY NIGHTS and get on them b12 shots. [Durianrider]

In the above shot you look like your taking drugs. ... In the below shot, you look like an off season Tour De France rider that is not taking drugs. Still look like you are super fit, just not drug fit. Somewhere in the middle is the more sustainable range. 😉 THEN again, you confuse me cos your flexing hardcore in the top shot and are 'letting it go' in the bottom one. [Durianrider]

I think you look much healthier in the second photo.

Well, so there you have it. In case you think I may have selected only the comments that offered no help, only encouraging him to keep to his delusion, his self-destructive path, then feel free to read through all of the comments. As of 18 hours ago, the last comment, there is not a single one that even hints or suggests that he's doing something seriously wrong to himself.

Not a single one of those mutherfuckers is willing for one second to even entertain a whiff of a notion that something just may be rotten in The Garden of Eden.

If this is not the hallmark of a cultish religion, then there's no such thing as cultish religion. This just pisses me off. For the sake of being "right," they are literally willing to toss away the aspirations of a young kid who clearly doesn't know any better.

So, folks, assuming Harout may get wind of this post, anyone out there want to offer him some real help and guidance? Some real love? Please take a moment to do so. And also take a moment to share this with Facebook Friends and Twitter Followers. You never know who you might save from embarking on a similar path of self destruction; one that's enforced by denial & delusion and encouraged by cultists.

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Comments

I’m sure Harout will stumble onto this… and if so, I’d recommend he take a hard look at the data on the Weston A. Price Foundation website for starters. Hey Harout – Ask yourself the hard questions with an open mind… why is your body starting to run-a-way down the ill health mountain?

Time to revisit your belief systems and free yourself from all that harmful conditioning.

Indeed Primal Dave; a cult it is. The funny thing is that many of these folks use the China Study as a basis to support their beliefs, even though the China Study data tells us almost exactly the opposite:

“Why on earth didnt you put this one up then bro? I TOTALLY dont understand! lol!

I mean this is how you are today so why put up a ‘fat shot’ so people can spread it around the net and say ‘hey! look at HM!’.

Does that make sense? Do I have to use another banana analogy? ;)”

Hey punk, why don’t you just leave the kid alone? That “new” shot is totally forced in the worst way and looks no better than the last shot. You know it, and we know it. Go suck on another banana. How’s that for an analogy?

That is exactly what we are telling you. That picture is bullshit. Plus you’re the last one that should be accusing anyone of sparking image disorders. You throw around fat accusations like it was nothing. You are one piece of work DR.

You’re response to his post shows that you only care about one thing: the way you and 30bad are coming off looking through this whole incident. You don’t give a shit about Harout.

On Mark Sisson’s forum if someone destroys their body and starts to get acne after 8 months (rarely happens), we tell them “What you’re doing is clearly not working. It looks like you should re-evaluate what you’re doing and make the necessary changes” and then we analyze what they’re doing and what their problems are and come up with a solution.

How can we do this? Because there is more to Primal eating than “eat lots of fruit yaaaay!” it’s versatile and can cover all bases no matter who you are. If you flounder on a fruitarian diet all they can tell you to do is “eat more fruit” or in rare cases “maybe you need to supplement with the nutrients your body needs to not deteriorate”, but that’s it. I have never talked to someone who had anything but miraculous success listening to Mark Sisson unless they didn’t listen well enough and stayed on a nutrient-deficient 5% carbohydrate diet for a long time, and in that case it’s usually amendable with more carbs, a little less protein and focus on the nutritional essentials.

Skepticism is key. Like Richard said, if everyone always agrees on everything, even the most blatantly silly rationalizations, then it is not a discussion but a religion. Best to proportion one’s beliefs to the evidence.

Actually, this is not quite accurate. On Sisson’s forum, I see *MANY* many comments of a similar bent to those quoted above (such as people being told to “give it time” — and is “It’s never the fruit!” really all that different from “Stop eating nuts!” or “Eat more fat!”) when people are having problems.

It seems to me there is a common psychology behind this kind of veganism and bulimia/anorexia, except bulimics and anorexics don’t have cults egging them on and relentlessly driving a wedge between morality and well-being.

I follow those studies that rate faces as more or less feminine or masculine, and it really jumps out at me here: Not only does he have that doughy fat around his middle, his face seems more feminine, too. It may just be the fat, but it’s…weird. Poor dude. I hope he begins to use his own results as a guide, not the opinions of a bunch of banana munchers.

A guy goes from being in good shape to being in shitty shape, not only in terms of performance but very visibly, and decides it has nothing to do with his lifestyle. I feel bad for those who delude themselves (and have a hate-on for those who delude others for their own benefit), but everyone has to make their own choices. Is he any better off if we drag him by the nose and lead him to our particular trough of water? Health-wise, I believe he would be, but we’d really be just as bad as durianrider and those dipshits. If he doesn’t make an informed choice himself, the benefits he reaps aren’t his. They’d be ours. He’d just be a dog with his head out the car window as we drive his unthinking ass to the park.

So how do we do what Richard suggests? We can’t, really. This kid needs to realize (for himself) that something is wrong with his lifestyle. That comes first. Once he sees and truly believes that something is in fact wrong, he can take advice and begin to research and read up on the various other paths available to him. It’s not a period of adjustment; he’s going downhill. There’s nothing we can do to force him to re-evaluate that reality.

The first step is his to make. Hopefully he does come here having made that step first… but time will tell. I wish the guy the best but being 17 is no excuse to undergo such a horrible transformation and not think the following: “You know, I wonder if something’s wrong with the way I’m living. I can’t play basketball half as well as I used to, I look like shit, I have low energy, and I have acne. Nah, I’m just imagining things.”

I agree with you, Patrick. The real point of the post is first to issue a wakeup call and second, to offer info and encouragement if he were to want it but absolutely it’s all up to him and thinking critically and doing for himself is essential.

Of course, the overriding point of this post is to shine a light on that 30bad crowd. Clearly this illustrates that they are totally unreliable in terms of providing any valid information at all.

I agree with Patrick, and I agree with Richard. My reactions to reading the kid’s post was sadness, but durianrider’s comments just pissed me the fuck off. THAT’s the body of a doped-up gym rat? Water weight? Those comments border on the criminal, forget denial.

I’ve been lurking for a while (love your work, Richard!) but just had to say something.

i’m with you andrea. this boy is still technically a minor and durianrider’s comportment really is criminal. as a mom, this whole thing makes me so so so sad. harout, if you read this, know that a diet that is actually good for you will cause you to perform better and give you your life back. you are being LIED to and manipulated so somebody can revel in their own delusions.

Jenny, I absolutely agree. As a mom, what I see is a kid who has been taken advantage of. And, on top of that, the people he admires and is trying to emulate are being cruel to him. I’m really quite sickened. The dreams of this young man have been dashed and the course of his life is altered because of very bad health advice the intent of which is not to promote positive health outcomes but to serve a single person’s ego.

Harout, I really hope you have a Google alert on your name or get curious and end up reading these comments. I wish you luck in finding real solutions to the problems this bad advice has caused. I wish you good health in the future.

On the other hand, he can’t make an informed choice if nobody ever speaks up and says anything. You don’t have the option if you don’t know the option exists. Why do some of us insist on letting people destroy themselves when, possibly, all we have to do is open our big mouths and present to them a possibility they might not have heard about, and maybe they’ll turn it around?

This is why I continue to argue in blog comments. Not because I really think I’ll convince whomever I’m arguing with but because some random lurker might be reading and that might be the nudge they need to investigate in a whole new direction.

If you smash your face against a tank and the tank doesn’t explode, will you keep smashing your face against it for another few months simply because someone hasn’t shown you what an anti-armor weapon is? In other words, this isn’t a X/not-X scenario. If something isn’t working, you stop and re-evaluate, even if another option isn’t immediately obvious to you.

After all, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”

“this isn’t a X/not-X scenario. If something isn’t working, you stop and re-evaluate, even if another option isn’t immediately obvious to you.”

if we factor in that he IS experiencing health benefits since incorporating this lifestyle, then it isn’t as simple as saying it isn’t working

taking into account these improvements, it would be foolish to sweep the whole board and start again, rather to first think about tweaking, and building upon, the positives thus far

i’m pretty sure that were you to experience certain issues with your diet that you wouldn’t immediately abandon everything about your diet but, instead, look to tweak and eliminate that which was causing problems

Patrick – you don’t have teenagers, do you? Yes, they WILL beat their head against the tank for months and months and not only not realize what an anti-armor weapon is, but IGNORE anyone over the age of 25 who tells them. It’s the nature of the beast, so to speak.

It is extremely rare to find a hardcore committed athlete who lets ideology of any sort get in the way of his athletic endeavors, but it does happen on occasion.

Generally most athletes are willing to do just about anything to further their career (including high school and college athletes), and will jettison something that isn’t working in a heartbeat. NBA Hall of Famer Bill Walton was a dedicated vegan, but finally gave it up when he realized his foot/bone problems (which basically scuttled his career in his prime) was caused by his diet.

I remember once my brother and me commenting on a NBA player (now in the hall of fame) who had a huge bubblebutt, but then we both caught ourselves and remarked that we would gladly take his butt if it ensured us a ticket to the big time for as long as he was there.

I don’t think so based on what I read, but maybe he might say screw it for the sake of returning to the level of play to which he was formerly accustomed.

And he looks like a fricken anatomy chart in the first one. It’s really amazing what the human mind is capable of, both in the Randian sense and in the sense that people can delude themselves in such an epic way.

The abs look good in the first picture but there’s a ” hollowness” in the face that is not quite right. I think sometthing was missing nutritionally then too. Keep in mind this kid made an awesome improvement to get there, having lost 85 pounds!

What he said what that as a chubby kid he weighed 185 at 5’3″. That’s when he started working toward the goal of getting on the basketball team. The timeline is a bit fuzzy but he started going to the gym and working with a trainer over a 2-year period. I’m guessing he started the prcess in middle school?

Regardless he doesn’t look much over 140 lbs. in that first picture, so he definitely slimmed down. I assume he stretch up some too.

The before/after photos look like an inversion of classic Paleo/Primal success stories. Read his story from bottom to top and it could almost be posted here or on Mark Sisson’s site. It’s hard for me to imagine any 17 year old thinking that an improvement. I can’t help but think that this is an attempt at trolling the 30 Bananas a Day site, because it’s exactly the kind of prank that would occur to me to play. That’s probably just me trying to rationalize what this poor kid has done to himself.

I barely knew what to think about Durianrider’s comment about looking like a “40 year old gym rat” in the first picture. His view of the world is so fundamentally different than my own. But I guess we’ve already heard enough from him to know that.

Yea, Chris, and even if it was a troll, you’re still left with the response from the Bananas crowd, which stands on it’s own. In the end, that’s what this is really about. Harout can turn things around fast, any time he wants but I can’t see 30bad every being anything but a cult of True Believers.

You’re eating more meat and leaning out as a result and you honestly think eating more meat is unhealthy?

Now mind you, eating all your meat as muscle might be unhealthy in the long run. But here’s a secret… ssshhhh… *whispers* Ancestral diets DON’T limit themselves to the muscle. That’s not even the most desirable part of an animal to most of those people. They gorge on the fat, and they always have an organ or three they eat as a delicacy, and they make broth from the bones and other collagen-containing parts.

Interestingly (Ray Peat writes about this, look him up), bone broth with joints and skin included in the formation process contains glycine which balances out the somewhat-overage of methionine and tryptophan and cysteine in muscle meat. Because while you can get all your amino acids at once from muscle, those three are in slight surplus and over time that can cause various imbalances in your system. Nothing the ancestors would have known. They just didn’t want to waste their food. But they benefited from it so they kept it up.

“Balance” is “health,” not “whatever sounds palatable to people with no background in biochemistry.” Next thing you’ll be telling us to get some grain back into our diets.

That’s a good point, Dana. Serious soup made from real stock punches above its weight in nourishment. You can feel the strength even as you eat what is mainly liquid.

I’m not sure I go for the argument that because the cavemen did it, it’s healthy. Those cavemen died off awfully young without radio interference, carcinogenic chemicals and oil spills. If their diet were perfect, they’d have lived longer. But that’s a bigger issue than this raw food vegan madness…

@Alec. You’re confusing “how old they were” with the Average Life Expectancy at Birth. When 50% of the population dies before the age of 5 due to infection and complications at birth, the average life expectancy drops quite a bit.

Peat has loads of genius ideas, just make sure to do some background reading and apply commonsense before implementing his stuff. You could also wait until Matt Stone tests out his theories. At least he gives feedback when his experiments go wrong.

That’s great and all, but in reality no one can justify killing a conscious living creature for any reason other than complete necessity. A cooked vegan diet would be 100% healthy and give a person all the nutrients they need. This kid was obviously doing something wrong if he gets that fat from it. Yeah sure meat is good for you, but there are alternatives that don’t involve killing conscious beings just because”it tastes better”. If you honestly think that’s a good reason that you deserve to die.

I don’t deserve to die because I want to give myself and my family good food, what kind of a horrible person would assert that? Are you a violent person who hates other creatures, including people? Surely you couldn’t be a ‘peace-loving vegan’ who wishes no harm on other creatures…now could you?

“but there are alternatives that don’t involve killing conscious beings”

Setting aside the debate about consciousness (show me an animal besides human with and conception of a code of ethics, for example), there certainly are options for those who hold such values. Oysters, for example, don’t even have a central nervous system. And then there’s the whole world of bugs & insects and probably plenty of other shellfish like clams & mussels that could not be classified as “conscious beings” even by the most wild-eyed standards.

But I never hear vegans advocating these kinds of foods, even when it’s clear some people do very poorly on vegan diets.

Peter Singer, of all people, has stated that vegans can, in good conscience, eat oysters, clams, etc., precisely on the grounds Ricahrd describes.

Singer, whose views I am not endorsing here, is at least willing to follow the ethical argument wherever it goes in a dispassionate way. Veganism as ideology will not do so because such concessions would impugn its ostensible spiritual superiority.

The only way to have these debates is to carve our the ethical and the health aspects and discuss them separately. Too many of the vegan responses here are saying “Killing animals is wrong, therefore veganism is the most healthy diet”. Sorry, but logic doesn’t work that way. We can have the ethical argument if you want, but do not, do not, do not, mix it up with the argument over health.

If, at the end of the day, anyone says “I realize that veganism may not be the most healthful diet, but due to the ethical considerations and the availability of supplements, I am willing to pursue it for ethical reasons nonetheless”, fine. But don’t argue that its superior ethics (a point I am not conceding) MAKES IT more healthy… That’s ideology, not science.

By the way, I can’t remember the Singer citation offhand, but I am certain it is in his writings, and not something he hides.

To preempt any misunderstandings, let me rephrase my summary of Singer’s position, as I worded it badly since veganism by definition cannot involve the use of any animal product, so I should not have used the word “vegan”.

Singer’s point was that, using the standard of concsiousness and awareness of pain, given our current state of knowledge about the nervous systems of oysters, clams, etc., there is no convincing ethical argument against killing / eating / using them.

(Whether he changed his view in response to David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster”, I do not know….)

“It is hard to explain what an octopus can do without assuming consciousness, but with the bivalves, the evidence for consciousness is barely stronger than it is in plants, which is to say it is vanishingly slight. Ethical arguments against eating animals that are based on not causing – or not risking causing – suffering therefore get little grip on eating oysters, clams, and scallops, but are applicable when it comes to eating octopus and squid…”
~Peter Singer & Jim Mason, ‘Eating: What We Eat And Why It Matters’ (2006) That’s what the book is called in the UK, I believe it had a different title in the US.

Better tell all the animals of order Carnivora that they have no right to exist, then.

Furthermore, veg*anism doesn’t stop you from killing animals: it just pushes the death to somewhere you can’t see videos of it on YouTube. Clearing and sterilizing land to grow crops kills all the animals that used to live there just as surely as hunting or slaughtering them.

Every one of us kills animals just by existing. What do you think “population shrinkage due to habitat loss” means?

Totally agree with you here, they may not be killing animals by eating them but by growing field upon fields of crops really do push animals away from their natural habitat. Plus, civilization has already been doing this so everyone is already guilt.
I just choose to eat whatever is good for me as a being – same thing with every single animal in this planet.

For every life, there is death, that’s reality. HOWEVER, keep in mind, most of those fields of crops are being grown to unnaturally feed livestock that are killed for human consumption, so if the world were to go vegan, there would be a LOT LESS animals killed, directly from the livestock not being bred in the first place, and indirectly because not as much crops would need to be planted to feed the now nonexistent livestock.

If this is an ethical question that turns on “number of lives killed,” it’s not so simple. Right now, it’s farming and ranching practice to clear and till up fields, feed livestock, and then feed people the livestock.

– if the whole works were vegan, that would necessitate probably significantly more crops on more land because livestock is very nutritionally dense, even compared to legumes. More fields means more destruction of the small critters vegans don’t seem to care much about, as well as destruction of their habitat in forrest & prairie.

– if instead, livestock were only fed by means of open space grazing and roaming, this would be in concert with nature – “Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam…” Fields that are now tilled at the expense of thousands of critters and destruction of habitat would be returned back to a natural state of prairie and forrest.

Could you feed the whole world that way? Dunno, but there’s simply no denying that no matter how you go about it, feeding humans is destructive to ecosystems. But I think there’s less relative destruction the more natural the process is, i.e., free range ruminants.

Those before/after pics are tragic. It’s rather deranged of a person to think that the “after” pic is more healthy. Perceptions of what’s healthy looking are really screwed up. I suppose it’s no different than most people’s dietary/nutritional perceptions. Any reasonable person can immediately see why he’s slower on the basketball court! Hope the kid gets sound help soon, or he’ll never sniff the college hardwood.

Wow- this was really sad to see. Not only are the negative physical changes so dramatic, but he clearly is at odds deep down with what he wants in life, and what he is actually doing to himself. I hope he gets back on track with what makes him strong and healthy, and regains HIS truth.

I’m surprised that his family is following him down the same road when they have the visible results of his diet staring them in the face each day. I don’t know how a mother can see her son start out with clear skin and muscles turn into a zitty doughboy and decide that diet would work for her, too.

Harout, it is commendable that you realize the role food can have on your body but whatever you are doing is NOT giving you the results you seek and deserve. Try something else!

When you see a person day in and day out, subtle changes aren’t noticed.

I became my husband’s caregiver when he had 2 Traumatic Brain Injuries about 45 hrs apart (1996). He developed Crohn’s disease…probably from all the meds he was on….and I didn’t realize that he was starting to look blue-ish. A friend came to visit, who hadn’t seen him in a couple months and told me something was wrong. My husband just looked pale (hadn’t been outside for awhile) to me. I took him to our VA and he was seriously anemic and needed a blood transfusion. I hadn’t been away from him for a number of years, so I didn’t see it creep up on him. Had it been sudden, I would have seen it. However, he was passing a bit of blood every day and going downhill slowly. It doesn’t happen anymore as I take regular breaks from being a caregiver and I see differences when I get back.

IdahoLaura, you are right. Just like I don’t notice my son has grown up so much till I try and put clothes on him that he has long outgrown! I hadn’t thought of it that way. I do think, however, his family should notice the acne at least. That’s a pretty visible difference. Then again, I always notice skin differences because of my own skin issues.

I just read about your husbands recovery from TBI, I had many similar issues with anemia, NEVER resorted to blood transfusions but found the deficiencies were in bio-available Essential Fatty Acids, my experience and bravery to go w/o doctors advice for years has left me more capable/ able to help others to achieve their own results as well!

This is disgusting. I tried to add the kid on facebook so I can knock some sense into him. I also tried to comment on that post and in order to register, you have to agree to follow exactly what Durianrider and his crew preach, and not have an opinion of your own. Are you fucking serious? I can’t believe shit like this exists. Sorry to vent here, but you’ve got to be fucking kidding me

Harout, if you see this, it’s time to ask some questions. If you’re eating raw vegan for a matter of conscience about eating animals, then to me, that’s unassailable and you gotta eat what you feel comfortable eating.

But if you’re eating this way for health purposes, I urge you to do your research. In a sense, you already have and your experiment is failing. No diet should make you lose performance or degenerate physically. Even though you were eating the SAD before, you emanated health and energy. Please consider doing what is necessary to reclaim your body’s rightful heritage. Especially being so young, your hormonal balance is at stake here.

Bodies are funny things. They don’t always make sense. But we have to stop thinking we know best and force an idea of what we should be eating on ourselves. We need to go the other way—what can we do to give our body the nourishment it’s asking for?

So, you’re saying that someone eating the Standard American Diet can have greater physical health than someone on a fruit-based diet? So, eating Big Mac’s can be healthier than eating loads of bananas? The only reason an obviously healthier diet may cause ill effects in the BEGINNING is because of detox – one’s body is slowly losing its tolerance for all the bad stuff one previously dumped in it. Why do you think nearly all babies have digestive issues before they “grow out of it?” Easy answer: they’re eating processed foods, which are unnatural, and the only reason they “grow out of it” is because their bodies build up a tolerance to the food. Just the same, a child raised low-fat raw vegan, who makes friends with others who regularly eat at McDonald’s, one day decides to “go with the flow” and try eating at McDonald’s with his/her peers, could wind up in the hospital after just one or two bites of Big Mac, because his/her body is simply not tolerant of the bad stuff in the food like any “normal” Western eater is.

If someone has thyroid issues it can be as a result of underlying b12 deficiency. Hey, are vegans the ONLY group that uses b12 supps? NO WAY! Your guru’s Mark Sisson, Robb Wolfe, Sean Croxton, Jo Mercola etc all take em and sell em.

Im open enough that if someone needs to take a supp that they should. I dont sell em BTW.

This is a 17 yr-old kid. He’s not getting even a whiff of caution from your site and his change in body comp for a guy of his age is pretty dramatic. As site owner I would think this should be of some concern for you and hot babe.

This is the Internet and if you’re more concerned about protecting catechism than transparency this will just crop up continually. And, othes of your members will become more emboldened. I’ve told you this before, privately. I’m not hostile to 30 bad, per se. I’m hostile to a cloistered environment that pretends as though it has no dirty laundry.

BTW, I am hypothyroid and take desiccated pig thyroid. This is a condition I had long before going paleo and losing 60#. However, I di the same thing and went off meds when I began losing weight and the weight loss continued. Got tested after the loss and was still clinically hypo even with no symptoms, so I went back on the meds (just a food product, really) to play it safe.

I am so mad right now I could spit nails. I’m not inclined to mince words right now.

Harley, if someone tells you they’ve gone off their thyroid meds and you don’t advise them to go back on them until they can visit their endo and verify their hormone levels are normal – then you are being an irresponsible asshole. Hypothyroid is not something that can be cured, especially not with diet. And you have the causality of the b12 link backwards. Hypo/hyperthyroidism leads to low b12, not the other way around. Because it affects your metabolism and your digestion it has a direct impact on your b12 absorbtion.

More than a hypocrite. A nutcase and a liar. He’s no “endurance athlete.” In addition, he might have quit drugs, but he still has the druggie mindset. He’s stumbled into a good thing with his chick and some kind of cult “following “and he’s not letting go.

IMHO 30 bad is not “like” a cult. It IS a cult. The control over dissenting opinions,the denial of reality, the power he has over people in spite of evidence to the contrary is classic cult behavior. It’s just unfortunate that this young idealistic kid who obviously is in need of validation has fallen for this.
Dude, this is not working for you. Wake up and have some of your old friends (cult followers often get new friends) look at these pictures.

I speak from the experience of having been a member of a psychotherapy-political cult many years ago for about three years. My boyfriend at the time, who was, unbeknownst to me, a member of the cult, helped to recruit me into the cult. (Funny thing is, the relationship did not last — most relationships in cults do not, because one must put the needs of the cult, the collective, before one’s own.) It was about a year after I left the cult (of course, I was ostracized by them) that I stumbled on to the book “Combatting Cult Mind Control” by Steven Hassan, which revealed to me that the group that I was in, that I still longed for, was indeed a cult. The “truth” and “reality” Hassan laid out in that book was so compelling, that I read about half of it standing up in the bookstore. Here is his website, if anyone is interested. Also, here is another website about cults that I found whilst searching for Hassan’s.

Someone posted a youtube video of Durian’s in these comments. I watched a bit of it. From watching that thing, I could tell, that Durian fancies himself a “guru.” It was the gobbledygoop that he spewed that set my cult alarm to ringing.

You know, I thought that with the internet, one would be less vulnerable to joining up with a cult; because, one thing that many cults depend on is a person being isolated, cut off from the real world, and insulated within the world that the cult leader has created. It seems to me, from the comments he posted here, that Harout is on that slippery slope to being a member of Durian’s cult: his comments are as rambling as Durian’s so-called logic. If the internet does not make it less susceptible to joining a cult, well, then maybe, using its resources, it will make it easier for a person to leave one, because the accessibility to facts (that can shine a light on the lies that the cult leader tells) is easily available with it. Although, with Harout, who has shown himself to be a smug, know-it-all; I don’t think he wants to face up to the facts, or even consider another perspective, and prefers (because you all have got his back up; he is defensive) to follow the sick and twisted “wisdom” of a nutcase who chases kangaroos around on a bicycle.

B12 deficiency is common in people with thyroid problems. It doesnt cause it. Once again Durianrider has displayed his massive ignorance shamelessly.

I would love to see this kid’s T3, T4 and TSH blood results. I would bet money thet are all out, and he has hormonally fucked himself up for life with his unnatural diet. Vegetarianism was the worst thing I could have done for my thyroid, I will never make that mistake again. Whole foods, meat, fat and proper nutrition are the best things for a low thyroid and I have the blood analysis to prove it.

Wow, where else in life would anyone believe that moving away from a goal is a necessary step towards it?

If I said I was on a new savings plan, where I spend all the money I can all the time, then said I’m going through an adjustment period and I’ve noticed that during this time my bank account has become empty would anyone just encourage me to keep spending and assure me that it’s just part of the savings plan I’ve started? Would they say just keep spending everything I make and they’re sure that my account will rebound soon?

Show me how you’re measured and I’ll show you how you’ll behave. Simple as that. And the 30BAD guys and gals don’t have objective measurements. He gains fat, loses strength and speed but the subjective “I feel great” overrides that?

Hell, I’d eat a diet that made me feel crappy some of the time if it improved my longevity, performance, health, sex life…you get the idea. Instead this poor teen is starving his body and deceiving himself, but shame on 30BAD for helping him remain deceived. Pitiful.

I hope it was a fabrication. I hope the before is really the after, and vice versa, and this teen will soon say “Hah! You idiots! The ripped version is from switching to Paleo/primal and the fatty version is from twinkies and mountain dew.”

It’s more enjoyable for me to think it’s a prank than to believe some teenage boy is shit-canning his health like that.

Those photos are so sad to see. And it is simply sleazy for the fruit cultists to convince him that this is a cleansing period and that he actually looks better!! Christ, if my son, who is about the same age and is playing basketball, started to look like this boy, I’d take him out to the fucking woodshed, make him chop some wood, fire up the grill and throw a couple of steaks on. Sorry, I disagree with you guys when you say a 16-year old should be able to arrive at the logical conclusions you suggest on his own. That age is a time when kids are barely just learning to separate themselves from herd mentality. I’d say yank him the hell out of there until he gets healthy enough to realize that he had been seduced into a state of illness by a cult. Loot at this way. If it were some other cult and it were your son or daughter, would you just sit back and wait until he came to his senses and saw the cult for what it was? Would you really let him just keep drinking the koolaid?

I agree with you (and disagree slightly with R.N.) on this issue. Teenagers do need our help and guidance. They also need role models and us as friends. I am not shy about telling them, I do not give up easily.

Re: That age is a time when kids are barely just learning to separate themselves from herd mentality.

Very important!

That is also an age when some learn to acquire the herd mentality. For life! That’s part of the problem! I believe that the school system is partly to blame for that. The emphasis on “team-playing”, “controversy-aversion”, “compliance with respect to authorities” kills their spirit. This boy was probably confused even before he adopted veganism.

The modern college culture of putting too much emphasis on sport performance, especially on practicing collective team games such as football, basketball, baseball, hockey etc, is fully to blame! This culture under-plays the importance of teaching the proper real survival skills to which I include science, math and engineering as the first and most important in the present age.

@michael
I was thinking back to when I was that age, and could totally see myself getting caught up in this herd mentality by all the positive feedback (especially if it was a hot chick who was telling me I was on the right path!).

Is it the fault of the 30BAD crew? No. Should they take some responsibility for this kid’s results and continued anti-success? Definitely. Just as Stabby pointed out, had he posted this on MDA there would have been pages of replies saying “you’re doing something wrong – what are you eating” rather than some unsubstantiated claims about a cleansing period… that apparently lasts 8 months, makes you chubby and knocks you down a level in HS BBall.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t that hot chick (Freelea) also gain weight initially when she started low fat raw vegan? Freelea claims that happened because she tried to calorie restrict her way to a leaner body, but then she started feeling sick…

WOW. I actually feel a bit sorry for the guy. He clearly wants to be healthy and is seeking input from a forum he respects. But it is this forum that really does my head in. Cult religion – correct. I mean, it is clear to my trained eye that his visceral fat levels have gone through the roof, his gut is distended, his oestrogen levels have increased (or at least his testosterone levels have dropped) as evidenced by his man boobs, he is spotty, and his muscle mass levels have tanked. And yet all he gets is it must be rehydration or the way he is posing.

Between DR’s debate with you Richard, and this sort of stuff, this is all the evidence you need to show that raw veganism is bad for your health – and I am referring more to the cultist side of it rather than than actual foods eaten.

I wish it as a prank, but very doubtful. He has quite a history of both forum posts and comments on 30bad. He also has an FB page, Twitter account and a bloodspot profile and a couple empty blogs, all with consistent info.

I am so disappointed. How is this in any way okay? All I read about in the low carb community is how annoying the vegans are for preaching. This is the same thing, no matter the good intentions. Please reconsider the need to point fingers at a 17 year old boy on a blog – with pictures no less – and ask for it to be tweeted and retweeted. The only sensible way is to contact him privately if you’re so concerned, but of course that does not make a great blogpost, does it.

Listen, he himself posted all this and more, and he did so publicly so it is totally fair game. Moreover, there are other issues far larger. I get tons of traffic from Google searchers (tens of thousands per month) on vegetarian and vegan themes.

i don’t think the fingers are being pointed at the boy (and he is a BOY). my son is almost this age and he can barely remember to SHOWER every day let alone be able to choose a truly healthy diet so i really don’t believe that the person who is being held responsible is harout. sif, i think we (the royal and the paleo) are pointing the finger at durianrider and his followers.

My basic opinion is who cares what it does to his body? What really matters is what it does to his mind, the part of himself that he can’t look at or measure but which controls every aspect of his life experience. Messing with that will endanger him immediately, avoiding old age diseases should not be the measure of health.

I’ve tried almost every diet, and it’s unbelievable how much your mind can expand and become faster, more creative, more focused, more positive. A low animal fat diet makes me dumber, slower, less able to concentrate, and gives me a more blah attitude on life. It puts you in bad moods that begin by lasting a few hours at a time then extends out to lasting weeks, and it just takes one second of lost concentration to get you injured or even killed (driving, for example).

“i know there is no other option of just picking myself up and aiming for the best i can be day in and day out … im not going to whine about it”

These are standard depression phrases, you can almost hear the sighs as he types and slides into a depressed defensiveness of his own unhappiness. People who’ve lived with depression in their household are very familiar with how it manifests, this is it. Depression puts you at risk for other diseases in a very real way, the correlation is very strong because most people go through depression on their way to diabetes or heart disease. It’s almost like the depression is your body’s way of saying “Change what you’re doing.”

Except they’re not old people diseases. They’re malnutrition diseases. And his mind is a part of his body… mind = brain, til someone can prove there’s something more there. Brain’s a physical organ, and what poisons the rest of his body will poison his mind too.

I’ve BEEN there. Been malnourished to the point of extreme anxiety and trigger temper and driving all my friends away. I am FURIOUS that people have still not figured out that physical condition rules mental condition. So many mentally ill are just thrown away, ostracized, because we are so ignorant about the body-mind connection in this culture that nobody understands these people’s brains are starving.

I was lucky. I’m smart enough that I could do my own detective work, even crazy like I was. I was also lucky in the sense that smart or not, I could not know what I know now had I not run across it by random chance. I don’t know if there’s a God, but stories like mine sure could be an argument for the affirmative, if that didn’t mean God chooses to save some people from themselves but shitcan others. I find that notion a bit difficult to swallow.

Seems more problematic (or requiring a lot more faith) to assume without demonstration that immaterial thoughts (consciousness) arise solely and inevitably from material compounds (an organ). For instance, what part of the brain does the “I” get assembled and defined, the I that precedes all thought?

Also, if mind = brain, then every aspect of knowledge and outlook are, ultimately, complex by products of complex chemical processes? And so, every debate should end in claims who’s brain is functioning better?

Traumatic brain injuries have been documented that are responsible for removing the capacity of the brain to perform every task the brain is known to perform. This implies that if there is an immaterial component to consciousness, it doesn’t actually DO anything, since the brain is demonstrably responsible for every aspect of consciousness.

If there is a nonphysical component to consciousness, then significant, thoroughly tested portions of physics are not just wrong, but drastically wrong.

Lastly, the last umpteen-thousand times humans said “science can take us this far and no further, it’s really something non-physical/magical/spiritual/epiphenomenal this time”, they were wrong. This has happened multiple times in cognitive science alone and, surprise, materialists won the bet every time. Emotions, language, symbolic logic, the senses, personality, sense of identity (separateness from other objects)… and given that there is ZERO evidence that anything in our brains doesn’t obey the laws of physics, I feel pretty safe making the bet that consciousness is next.

Faith requires a lack of an evidentiary basis for a belief. I think we’re on pretty solid epistemological ground here.

I don’t think he should switch to paleo, or that this has anything to do with paleo to begin with. He should just go back to doing what he did before. It was clearly working for him and the vegan thing – if all of this isn’t a prank – clearly isn’t. The poor guy seems to have been at the wrong place at the wrong time. First, he ruins his health with some orthorexic fruitheads and then he unknowingly ends in the middle of the paleo vs. raw low-fat vegan war. Please guys, don’t turn him into the starwars kid of nutrition.

If you’re a Kitavan, what he was doing before was probably fairly paleo. Vegetables and fish. It’s not like we’re fighting a war of opinions here. If what he’s doing is hurting him, he needs to stop it. I don’t see anyone turning into Pillsbury Doughboys on Paleo, do you? Getting more acne? Feeling like crap? Some folks have to adjust their meats vs. produce vs. starches but seriously, I am not seeing that sort of testimonial.

@Dana: What I mean is that it seems he doesn’t need to learn something new. He already had a way of eating that was working for him. He then tweaked it into the wrong direction. All he needs to do is go back. I fully agree that it was mostly Kitavan paleo and that’s probably why he looked like he did in the before picture. My point was to not make this poor young guy into the paleo vs. vegan posterboy and keep him out of a fight that is not his. Paleo itself is fine and healthy and the vegans need some sense beaten into them for sure. The ends don’t justify the means, though.

If he reads these comments and it gives him the opportunity to re-examine his beliefs enough to save his life and his future, then the ends do justify the means. A gamble though it may be, it was good to see Richard roll the dice on this one.

I hate how the answer to everything, besides eat more fruit is “detox”. It is the same with most the vegetarian sites. You feel miserable and its just detox!!

I also want to add that I am starting to believe Harley has a real problem with masculinity; in others and himself. I think he wants to look like a skinny woman. Any hint of manliness and you are on drugs or a meathead. He needs some real help, real soon. Time to get off welfare and act like a grown up.

First, let me say I agree this is tragic, and that, like most of the rest of the commenters here, I hope that the youth reconsiders his current diet before permanent damage is done.

That said, all his symptoms, from fatigue to performance problems, and the odd, doughy weight gain are textbook hypothyroid symptoms. Stopping thyroid medication cold-turkey can be very detrimental. While he may believe he “Cured” himself, I see no mention of blood work confirming that his T4, TSH, and T3 levels are normal. Whether one believes that diet alone can cure this kind of ill or not, I find it hard to believe anyone could think that simply a week of it would. His parents, who presumably got him tested and on appropriate medication in the first place, should be aware that his symptoms suggest a serious medical issue, and get him to his doctor for blood work. Even if they encourage the diet, that is no excuse to allow him to hurt, and possibly kill, himself (yes, hypothyroidism can be deadly, especially if medication is stopped suddenly). I suspect that his weight gain has far more to do with his sudden stop in medication than his diet, on which he’d probably otherwise be losing weight (which wouldn’t be healthy, since he was already thin and fit).

I really, really hope for his sake he got his thyroid levels tested. Thyroid misfunctions can be absolutely devastating and they affect the entire system. I’ve struggled with hyperthyroidism for almost ten years. My body had started digesting muscle – notably heart muscle – before I got properly diagnosed. Avoiding sugars and carbs seems to mitigate it a bit, but I still take twice daily medication. I’d never go off it without consulting my endocrinologist first. In the early years I did that when I felt ‘cured’ it only took about two weeks to start sliding backwards. (Yes, total herp-a-derp behavior on my part. I don’t do that anymore)

If he’s having skin problems, gaining weight, experiencing energy loss – then I would bet you dollars to brussel sprouts that his thyroid problems are not gone at all. It won’t be long before the ADD, depression, and anxiety symtoms kick back in.

My thougts exactly: my wife has hypothyroidism, to the point that her thyroid is, basically, completely useless. No amount of dietary change is going to make it spontaneously regrow, and if she doesn’t take the meds even for a day she gets tired and listless, and her metabolism slows to a halt.

The Harout thing seems not to be like a vegan issue at all; sure, his diet could be better, but he’s someone who admits to not trusting the meds, then stopped, and his friends are telling him he’s just retaining water.

You also have to take into account the many other people posting about large weight gains in a short amount of time on that site. They even talk about it like they are not surprised it happened because it happened for so many others. Even one person in the comments for Harout stated a gain of 30lbs in 6 months.

A logical explanation for that (according to the LFRV’s) are that the people who initially go on the LFRV diet previously relied too much on fat as their primary calorie sources (much like most of the paleos here), and limited carb intake to, say 150 g per day (like Mark Sisson advocates). Therefore, their bodies were chronically in starvation mode, so once they switched to high carb / low fat, their bodies intially attempt to correct that imbalance by storing fat, which is nature’s “insurance” against famine. However, if one stays on the diet long enough, the fat will melt away and one will eventually be in even better shape than one was on the old, high-fat low-carb diet.

“A logical explanation for that (according to the LFRV’s) are that the people who initially go on the LFRV diet previously relied too much on fat as their primary calorie sources (much like most of the paleos here), and limited carb intake to, say 150 g per day (like Mark Sisson advocates)”

So, Paleo does not always equal low carb? I thought cutting all grains, legumes, etc., and eating only vegetables and very few fruits naturally is carb restriction. If you’re not getting the majority of your calories from carbs, by default, it leads to fatty foods for calories (I don’t think protein exists in high quanties without fat co-existing with it), granted you’re eating much better quality fats than the “normal” Western eater.

Paleo is equator to arctic/antarctic circle and sea level to 16,000 feet elevation and everything in between. No, Paleo is whatever real foods are available, including fruit and starchy roots & tubers. You simply have to find out what works best for you individually.

For example, the Kitavan’s get about 70% of energy from tubers while another population in the same region gets 95% carb. Both exhibit excellent health. On the other side of the spectrum, you have the Tokelauans who, on their natural island diet got about 60% energy from fat, 50% from saturated fat because of coconut, which is 90% saturated. And you have the Inuit, very low carb.

Still, you have to admit that no matter what you’re eating as the primary source of your calories (be it organ meat, tubers, eggs, whatever), you should eat lots of green vegetables (lots of them raw, due to the need for vitamin C, especially if you shun fruits) too, for the vitamins and minerals.

Huh? If Vitamin C isn’t important, then why do most animals produce their own vitamin C? Humans are one of the few animals that don’t.

The only “strength” cooked vegetables have over raw, IMO, is that they’re easier to chew. There are folks that say, cooked vegetables have more of these certain vitamins or minerals available, such as cooked carrots having more available beta carotene (vitamin A) than raw carrots, but that ignores all the nondiscovered nutrients that were destroyed in the cooking process, AND it assumes that more of a certain nutrient is better, rather than trusting one’s body to extract the nutrients it needs in the correct amounts. More does not always mean better.

I didn’t say Vitamin C isn’t important. It is. Vitamin C can be found in meat (mostly natural offal)… and both Vit C and carbohydrates compete in uptake. One of the Glut receptors, but ATM I can’t recall which one. 1? So as far as I understand it, you increase your carb intake (as those sailors did) and you need to increase your VitC intake (as they did with lemons and limes, etc).

These all-meat people I have mentioned did not suffer scurvy after a year or 5.

We can both go “IMO” raw vs cooked, nutrient values and nutrient benefits forever without evidence, but that’s pointless. Folks can say anything.

You say, “nondiscovered nutrients”. Non-discovered? So we don’t know they are there??? What? Check out any nutrient profile database and they have both raw and cook Broccoli, for example. We can compare if we’d like.

Actually, you bring up a good point. I’ve wondered for years now how they come up with RDA values. How do they decide for a specific nutrient what is necessary, and beneficial??? I’d love to see a blog post about this topic.

Not sure what you are expecting from him here then. Some dudes are just plain skinny, especially in teenage years. In the first picture do you want him to put on more fat? More muscle? More water weight? Those are the only options…

I agree! Letting it out in the “After” picture! What!! Dude, he clearly doesn’t have to flex at all in the first picture to look like he has muscles. He was ripped. Now he just looks a kid that sits at home all day playing video games, not an active basketball player.

wow. as sad as this testimonial is, it is dramatic testimony to the failure of his education. that someone aged 17 years can’t understand the pseudoscience of raw veganism is frightening.
Richard, I enjoy almost every topic you blog on more than the raw vegan thing, but as a parent of 3 I understand on a very deep, very primal as you will, level, the importance of stomping out the vegan menace and your reasons (i think) for continuing to blast them in public forums. veganism is dangerous, particularly if it gains traction with the public health dipshits.
i am a true atheist, but i believe our bodies know on a very primal level what is needed. my 15 month old sat at the dinner table last night and ate 4 ounces of roasted duck. she spit out every single bite of carrot, turnip or parsnip. the other kids did the same. small children are a wonderful window into the nature of our human genes. they are soooooo much more in tune with their bodies than we are. it reminds me of a phrase i learned in residency. “you know as much as you will ever know at the end of medical school, from that moment on you will be distracted by your experience.” i like it. it takes liberty with our “gain” in knowledge, but the point remains true.
as always, keep up the good work.

It’s so sad to see his “After” picture. Poor guy is being influenced that this is a “clean” way of eating. You can tell in his writings that he’s starting to show signs of depression. And to throw his basketball career away because of this supposedly righteous way of eating and living does sound cultish indeed.

I am armenian, are you? I’d tell the guy to have a kebob or something. I know what you mean by what we have eaten. In Armenia we eat like every part of a cow or sheep. when i was getting full I was told to just stop eating the bread or rice and just finish the meat

I’m Armenian, but born in the USA and pretty damned Americanized, however, my girlfriend lived in Armenia/Iran her whole life before moving here a couple of years ago. What passes for healthy food here (in los angeles, the mecca for veg*n woo) compared to what is considered healthy over there would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. She grew up on lamb, beef, pork, fish, pheasant, fermented/raw dairy, white rice, and vegetables (some people also ate a lot of bread and suffered more health problems because of it, though not the area she’s from)–they even made a point to always save the brains and offal especially for the babies and kids so they’d grow to be strong and healthy (and man are they!). I fell in love the first time she insisted we go eat whole lamb head stew for an early morning winter breakfast. Oh, and she instinctively dislikes sweets/desserts, preferring salty or sour flavors. Granted she is just one data point, but she represents an unbroken chain of traditional food culture that has been passed down for generation after generation.

Harout, if you ever read this, all I can say is you’ve got your ancestors’ genes now go eat a damn sheep’s head and reclaim your fucking health buddy.

Hi Richard,
I,ve been following your blog a while and I must say you are doing a fantastic job.
Being an Indian I have a few relatives who are full vegans. While I respect their beliefs, it just pisses me off when they quote things from famous people on the morality killing animals(e.g Leo Tolstoy).
Btw I am glad to have found your blog, I do often quote your posts and put a link to here as the source.
Keep spreading the truth.

This is heartbreaking, I feel for this young man, and despise the 30BAD CULTure even more than I did before. Harout needs some caring guidance, not adherence to an ideology that is clearly not serving him.

Harout, listen to your body, how you feel. You’re sluggish on the basketball court for a very good reason – nutrition is all-important when it comes to performance – you were athletic before, your diet was ok. Ideology is one thing, feeling great because you’re fit, muscly and healthy is more important. You don’t need to hang out with the 30BAD cult to make you feel like you belong somewhere. I hope you are ok.

The latest entry on Tom Naughton’s blog at www. fatheadmovie.com has another heart-rending letter — from a parent of a young girl who went vegan after seeing that piece-of-lying-trash-Spurlock’s movie. The parent report gratefully that Tom’s movie has pulled the daughter back into eating like a human! I’ve been trying to convince my local school that if they’re gonna show Spurlock’s bit-o’-trash, they should expose the kids to the other — true — side of it and show Fat Head!

This kid looks ill in both pix — no matter his six -pack, he looks emaciated and hollow in the first, and just plain ILL in the second! (And I second the untreated hypothyroidism comment!)

So a more long term degradation in terms of muscle. However, I would say that his pic from Sep before going raw vegan is probably about ideal for a top varsity BB player at his age. Someone else pointed out that his “vegetarian” diet that included fish was Kitavanesque and clearly was working for him. I’d agree.

At a minimum, all he has to do is go back to what he was doing before.

He looks like I did when I was in highschool on a diet of pizza and candy.. chubby and acne-ridden with minimal muscle.

I noticed the pic he posted on the first page of his blog, all he’s showing is the arm and bicep-tricep separation, which is decent, but the rest is under his shirt.. also, look at how much his delts have deteriorated, and the fact that his hand is like the same size as his tricep. Not good times.

I was accepted as a friend on Harout’s Facebook and then banned after I posted on his wall a link to this site about him. Hopefully, he comes here to post a comment. I wasn’t been malicious it was just out of concern.

Sadly, this young man is suffering elevated blood sugars and as we all know, this the root of all disease. Lack of energy, weight gain, acne, 8 months later? This is not detoxification, this is pre-diabetes.

Misty, keeping it real, we don’t know any of that. We know he has gained fat. At least acute elevated insulin for sure, but he’s only 17 and only 8 months into this. Totally reversible, with not a whiff of any prior issue would be my guess.

Durian ranting about how veganism isn’t a religion from April 22, 2011. Oh, and how everybody else has the cognitive dissonance, not him. And a bunch of other rambling stuff that has nothing to do with the title of the video.

Is a vegan diet a religion? Pffft, man, it’s sorta like if people are that sort of dumb-down, apathetic, infused with ignorance and fatted(?) out and can’t even think for themselves, their heart is just switched off, you’re dealing with sort of zombies you know, so…

Oh, and Lierre Keith is a liar and her health problems were caused by meat (he does this in a kind of Gollum dialogue).

Personally, I’m starting to feel like giving attention to Durianrider / Harley is making him seem legitimate (to some people), like giving attention to the Tea Party is making them seem legitimate (to some people).

you know richard, the trouble with all this petty poking back and forth between vegans and flesh eaters, is the tendency to focus on the drawbacks of the opponents arguments. There are surely 10s of thousands of health success stories for people going from omnivorous to vegan, and I have no doubt, a fair few failures too. What you’ve done here is pretty typical in that you’ve jumped on one case of someone struggling, and naturally used it to promote your own cause. I have no doubt that vegans would do the same thing with all the many cases of failed omnivorous diets. It’s like when you point the finger at a vegan child that dies, and ignore the fact that omnivore children die far more frequently (albeit, perhaps because omnivores outnumber vegans by a great deal). To suppose that an omnivores death has nothing to do with the child’s diet, is as ignorant as supposing that every vegan child’s death is due to its diet. One can screw up with an omnivorous diet just as much as one can do so on a vegan one. One can also succeed. And many do. On both diets. Until age kicks in, and possibly many a flavour of cancer. alzheimers, parkinsons or other degenerative diseases that like it or not the onset of which could be postponed or even avoided altogether through eating in a more balanced way..

Sure, people do fail sometimes with veganism. But really there is no such thing as “the vegan diet”. the vegan diets of individuals can range from predominantly fried junky stuff, to much more healthy mixes. Just like omnivorous diets also can be.

In your debate with Harley, you accused him somewhat of arguing more against omnivorism than against the paleo diet specifically. You had a good point, except that you were doing the self same thing, and really just arguing against veganism, rather than his particular brand of veganism..

Personally that’s where the argument is really at anyway, as far as I can see. The paleo thing is really of little consequence as your diet besides the avoidance of wheat grain seems to be not too different to the one I grew up on and failed with.

I have no doubt that people can live reasonably long lives on either diet (for sure, it’s difficult to find vegans of any real age.. especially I suppose, since there are comparatively so few of us, and since the term vegan didn’t even exist prior to the 1940s!). The issue for me is not about who is healthier, because, after all, comparing individuals is basically unfair.. The real issue at hand is that of the animals whose individual sentience is being ignored in favour of gluttony.

Welcome back and great points. But why’d you have to go into the animal thing. We all believe that CAFO animals are treated unfairly and inhumanely – both vegetarians and meat eaters alike. It’s not about the animals when you get down to our level, it’s about what works for the individual, like you pointed out.

Society is to blame for CAFO meat, and this is above any meaningful conversation that you, I, or Richard can engage in. Stay focused.

This kid is not going to die, he’s just finding his path. We’ve all been there (the elders of us, anyway). Most here are overreacting. Like Richard said, it’s been a shirt time… he’s young, it’ll reverse. Look at Lex Rooker – he went through a lifetime of what this kid is doing and fixed himself in his 50’s.

I don’t see whose overreacting. This boy’s future is in jeopardy because of what he believes to be an optimal diet, and it is clearly affecting his athletic performance, as he has admitted himself. People are just concerned, to call it overreacting is an invalid implication. Sure he’s not “dying”, but he admits to having struggled in the past with hypothyroidism, and the prognosis at present based on his statements and provided anecdotes isn’t looking good. I just hope whatever diet he decides to adopt, he takes his health into serious consideration.

@Al, the reason I brought up the animal thing is because that is precisely the main focus of veganism. Many mistakenly look upon veganism as a diet.. something it clearly isn’t. For certain it causes effect to the diet, that part is unavoidable.

The underlying guidelines of veganism though, are not focused on diet, but rather on the avoidance of harming and killing other animals (whether it be for food, clothing, vivisection or entertainment is irrelevant). You state that vegetarians andmeat eaters believe that CAFO animals are treated unfairly and inhumanely. You may speak for yourself, but this is surely not true for the vast majority of meat eaters who clearly don’t give a damn, and from the sentiments I picked up on this blog last time I was here, is also not true for many of the paleo followers either (i seem to recall that when i pushed the point last time the general feeling was, well, they’re going to die anyway, and at the end of the day, why give a flying rats arse! Sure.. maybe not expressed entirely that colourfully).

Anyhow, let’s suppose that you and I share a disapproval of CAFO methods.. Our true sentiments on this subject would likely only stretch so far, as much as I rejoice at any minor step in animal welfare issues, it is not the ultimate goal of a vegan which is about animal rights, not animal welfare.. I’m not talking the right to vote or other such ridiculousness, but the right to live. And neither am I proposing we police anyone or anything, or set up ineffectual laws as Richard once wrongly supposed. Merely I would like to see a change in consciousness away from this “kill or be killed” attitude that many meat eaters seem to have, and this excuse that it happens everywhere, so it’s perfectly natural. I think this can be accomplished through the understanding that animals are not entirely unlike ourselves, in that they can think (although Richard in his talk seemed to be stating that animals were incapable of such, it seems pretty clear he is mistaken there) and suffer as we do. As I believe that a vegan diet can be healthy, which it seems you and I at least are in agreement on, why should I not chose to live and let live.. Indeed given that you apparently are in agreement with me that a vegan diet can work, why would you chose to still pursue flesh as a means of sustenance, knowing that it can only be gotten through the unwilling termination of another’s life?

Whether anyone likes it or not, this is a moral issue. You yourself oppose CAFO methods I’m guessing due to moral reasons, so I ask you, why would it be somehow “wrong” for others to not oppose CAFO methods? Perhaps you yourself unintentionally impose morals on others by disapproving of CAFO treatment of animals..

Mango, I don’t think you are getting where some of us are coming from. Veganism is totally unsustainable in a natural world. Not only when it comes to agriculture and logistics, but morally as well. Humans are moving further and further away from the natural world all the time. Veganism is but another manifestation of this. This movement is not sustainable over the long term. Sooner or later, global civilization will take a crash. At that point, humans will be forced back to more natural ways of living like it or not. The morality of the natural world is that life and death are part of the great circle. One cannot exist without the other. There is no good or bad in this. It just is. Human arrogance and the resulting artificial moralities, are but passing trends.

@ulfr, what makes you believe veganism is unsustainable? flesh eating requires far more land, far more water, creates far more pollution. roughly 10 kilos or more of grain is needed to ultimately produce 1 kilo of cow flesh.. Sure you may be all for grass fed, free range animals, but try feeding the masses the quantities they demand that way, and you’ll soon run into problems. A tree based agriculture beats an animal centric one hands down for feeding the masses.

You suppose there is no good or bad in killing, and yet, if your own life were under threat of a mad man, you would surely protest, and i seriously doubt you would be happy letting another person be killed in cold blood for the food of a cannibal. there is a right and a wrong, you just draw the line in a different place to that of a vegan.

Let me ask you this, Mango Do you think a vegan (or fruit) diet is possible in Northern Europe year-round without food shipments from across the globe which are totally dependent on cheap oil? When the oil starts running out, how do you think they will get fruit in Alaska in the dead of winter? Non sustainable. Do you propose that the whole human population move to the tropics? How do you think they will get there? And we have not even addressed what Richard is saying about feeding masses 3 kcals of fruit a day!
I did not say there is no good or bad in killing. You have missed my whole point. In nature, there is no life without death. Nature does not care what we think is good or bad. In a more natural setting, humans are more in balance with their morals. As far as I know, all hunter-gatherer societies have taboos of one kind or another against killing of human beings. But since they are part of nature (and we still are, though we pretend we are not…the chickens will come home to roost one day), they understand that killing is part of living. Only those who are far separated from nature entertain the strange morality of “animal rights.”

@ulfr, yes. ultimately, i do believe that such could be possible. Sure difficultly doable today, but as transport technology evolves, and the dependence on fossil fuels is lost, then i have no doubt. Actually, I have little doubt that the knowledge to create such technology already exists, and that to a certain extent, has been suppressed by the oil companies who clearly would not stand to benefit from it. Ultimately I believe that the earth will straighten itself, and that the resulting end of seasons, will mean that northern regions will be able to grow their own fruit trees. But hey, I admit that’s just a dream that may never happen. Anyhow, let’s suppose that for the sake of the argument that it isn’t possibe, so the people in the north somehow have no other choice than to eat like the inuits (and die of old age at 40), would that be a reason why the people further south should do likewise?

If the masses all ate paleo, they wouldn’t suffer from constant hunger, and therefore, wouldn’t demand so much meat. I’d bet that vegetable and fruit consumption would actually go up, requiring more planting of polyculture, varied acreage, and per capita meat consumption would go down. So I do believe mass paleo would end up being quite sustainable.

Sorry Mango, but your retreat into crazy ideas with no basis in reality in answer to my questions, says it all. Earth straighten itself out in order to end seasons so that you can have an animal rights utopia? If that were to happen, we would not have fruit trees growing in the north. We would have the end of life on earth as we know it. For the sake of sane argument, I think this one is over.

@ulfr, my retreat into the realm of daydream was catagorized as such, you chose to fully ignore the rest of my answer which was very much based on the world we know live in today. From my experience denial is something you paleos are all very good at. And then accusing vegans of denial as your counter argument.. typical. Instead of holding an intelligent conversation, you run away and hide.

there’s a lot of conflicting stuff out there on the internet richard. Maybe my quote of 40 was way off. I’m sure it likely is. But when I search around for the life expectancy of an inuit, everywhere I look it states that they are below the statistical average for their country. Often by as much as a decade. Sure, I’m aware that statistics may not always indicate what you think they indicate..

One thing I’ve come across many times though, is that inuits have the highest osteoporosis rate in the world.. many say this is due to all the excess protein they consume. I don’t know what the truth is there, but another thing is for sure, none of you guys are inuits, so using them as an excuse to justify your own habits is hardly really valid.

My point always in citing the Inuit, just as I cite the Kitavans is to illustrate the enormous range the human animal has evolved to exploit. But because the Inuit live at such an extreme I’m pretty sure it’s not optimal.

But what I’m pretty sure _is_ optimal is as wide a variety of real whole foods one can get, from plants and animals alike.

Your “daydream” shows a total lack of understanding of the complexity of the world and how all the parts of nature work together. You base other parts of your answer on pie-in-the-sky hopes of better technology and “beliefs” that such technology already exists. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that they do. Do you seriously expect that over 6 billion people could not only live at these latitudes, but grow their food there too without completely destroying the remaining rainforests and their animal inhabitants? I would catagorize your whole answer as in the realm of daydream. What is your “intelligent” response?

@ulfr, there’s naught wrong with dreaming. even if the dream is far from reality. i don’t regret having done so, but think it petty of you to make such a big deal of it, especially as i clearly stated it was a dream. You ask: Do you seriously expect that over 6 billion people could not only live at these latitudes, but grow their food there too without completely destroying the remaining rainforests and their animal inhabitants? Why on earth should I expect that 6 billion people could live comfortably and sustainably at any one latitude on any diet? What a bizarre question. Perhaps you were sleeping when you wrote it.. It was very unclearly worded.

Look Mango. No, there is nothing wrong with dreaming. But I stated that veganism is only possible in our globalized, technological civilization with such things as cheap transportation (due to oil). I then said that when these things are taken away, veganism is unsustainable. You respond with dreams. There is nothing wrong with dreams, but you are not engaged in a logical discussion here. My question was not bizarre at all. It was simply an extrapolation of your dreamy line of reasoning. So I will restate these questions. When our technological civilization bites the dust (or gets knocked down a few degrees of complexity), how do you propose that the vast numbers of people outside a narrow range of latitudes sustain a vegan lifestyle? Can you answer this without dreams?

Actually ulfr, now, that is an entirely different question than before. Now you are asking if it is sustainable given a breakdown in society and no technological advancement.. Before you clearly asked me the straight question: Mango Do you think a vegan (or fruit) diet is possible in Northern Europe year-round without food shipments from across the globe which are totally dependent on cheap oil?. I responded yes [i do think/believe that such could be possible], and well within the realms of reality for thinking so. Now you are basically removing the option for alternative transport, or any real transport at all. But I’ll humour you, despite that your question is not at all answerable with a straight yes or no, this time. Given such a scenario, for one thing I would see a complete meltdown in society, cities would no longer be a viable option, meat eaters and vegans alike would both be thrown into a dire situation, there would not be enough food for either until the population diminished sufficiently to allow it, or those that were able moved south. Given that some survive and chose to remain in that region, and that some where still ethically opposed to prematurely ending the lives of others, then for certain they would likely have a harder time surviving as vegan than the flesh eaters would. Likely they would have more intelligence than their neanderthal counterparts though, and make their ways slowly southbound, leaving the zombie flesh eaters to eat each other. (ha!) The odd slow witted vegans that chose to remain, may find themselves once more having to compromise their morals, but ultimately, the occasional individual might succeed in just eating vegan food. Tandoori is spot on though, that you’ld be unable to really keep following a meat reach paleo diet either.

Now if you once more worded your question wrongly, and what you really wanted me to answer was: “what if the whole of society up there was vegan, would they be able to survive?”, then I’d have to answer that certainly not any better than the flesh eaters, they’d be faced with the same difficult situation not without a struggle and some innovative thinking would most definitely be needed to survive, but then again same goes for the flesh eaters. I suspect, that if they put there minds to it, they could find a way to do so sustainably, but it would be difficult and not without challenges. (and admittedly, increasingly more difficult the further north one goes!)

I noticed however, that despite my sincere attempts to answer your own given questions (that also entered the realm of fantasy, which I’ll turn a blind eye to), you totally ignored and refused to answer the one I posed back at you, which I requote here (minus the exaggerated inuit bit): Anyhow, let’s suppose that for the sake of the argument that it isn’t possible, so the people in the north somehow have no other choice [but to eat flesh], would that be a reason why the people further south should do likewise?

No problem. My whole point is that without modern globalized, technological civilization, veganism outside a small range of latitudes is not realistic or sustainable. It is totally dependent on said civilization. The alternative transportation you speak of goes unamed. What is it? If you cannot tell me, then it too is a fantasy. Meat eating is far more realistic and sustainable in a much wider swath of the earth (without civilization) which is exactly why humans have evolved to eat meat in the last couple hundred thousand years or so (in case you bring it up, that is ample time to co-evolve with the cooking of food which is directly a consequence of the simultaneous evolution of our brains). Now to answer your question you are harping on (trying to change the course of the discussion), no of course it is not a reason. But that is neither here nor there. That has nothing to do with my main point as stated above. You are free to turn a blind eye to any part of this discussion. I cannot convince you of anything and I am not trying. Maybe some others are reading this and might now have something different to think about.

@ulfr, sustainable technology exists that could be used for alternative transport. Battery power is becoming ever more efficient, solar power could be used to charge them. Alternatively generators could be set up, anywhere, to remove hydrogen from water and bottle it in tanks that could then be used to power vehicles. There are other innovative ideas that are out there, and could be used, if there were enough vested interest in doing so. So it is not really a question of how, but more of when. None of this is in the realm of fantasy, engine efficiency could also be radically increased through applying new technology to the motor itself, you may wish to remain in denial of this though, and chose to not see it as ultimately viable. that is your choice. Veganism surely is sustainable in a large range of latitudes.. anywhere south of about 50 degrees (or north on the other side of the equator) is generally doable. Sure, some foods would have to be preserved over winter, but it would be possible. Besides, given your fantasy scenario (which I admit may actually come to pass) of a complete break down in society as you suppose, vegans would not be the only ones struggling.

Yes, I can agree that in more extreme environments, veganism would not work, but honestly, I seriously doubt that any of us are living anywhere remotely near such an environment without society, so so what? Why do you retreat into the realm of fantasy to get your point across? Stick to the reality of the world we live in today, and I will do likewise.. and in this world, there is transport still, albeit not the best, and both of us are dependent on it to get our food. Or are you in denial of that too?

“sustainable technology exists that could be used for alternative transport. Battery power is becoming ever more efficient, solar power could be used to charge them. Alternatively generators could be set up, anywhere, to remove hydrogen from water and bottle it in tanks that could then be used to power vehicles. There are other innovative ideas that are out there, and could be used, if there were enough vested interest in doing so.”

This is what has frustrated me about the “environmentally conscious” for as long as I can remember.

It’s probably not worth going into, so I’ll just give a quick example. They used to hunt wales primarily for the oil that was used for lamps, not for food. Then fossil fuels were discovered and it was such an amazing technology, all considered and integrated, that it did not take long. This didn’t happen because of monied interests as much as the fact that it was far less costly to deliver to market (same folks could have owned whalers).

Fossil fuels is simply the most competitive form of energy there is, perhaps with the exception of nuclear but that has downsides we’re all too familiar with at present.

What I hate and have hated is the push against productivity. With 7 billion peple on Earth we better fucking produce or we’re going to have a lot worse thing on our collective conscious than environmental degradation that usually, in time, can be ameliorated. Who wants to have 20 million deaths by starvation al-la the “brilliant” Chicoms?

The point is, Mango, that there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. I simply prefer for nature — that includes its productive and innovative human animals — to take its natural course.

I agree 100% with what Richard just said. I have some other points to add as well. I know a few things about this as I am involved in alternate energy. You are correct about their existence, but alternate energies also depend on cheap oil (and much else) right now for their manufacture and distribution. This is not a simple problem. Everything is connected to everything else in our global civilization. The factories that produce batteries, generators, and solar cells (particularly solar cells) require enormous amounts of energy both for production and transportation of raw materials (not to mention their extraction from the earth) and parts. Hydrogen cells are very expensive right now due to materials. ALL of these technologies incorporate toxic materials for their parts and production. Those have to be dealt with using transportation and other infrastructure as well. I agree with you about vested interests and probably we have the same opinions of oil companies and others, but that does not mean I believe in any vast conspiracies (not implying that you do…I don’t know that). In our civilization there are layers, upon layers, upon layers of complex, interconnected infrastructures dependent on one another in addition to the vested interests. Not boding well for civilization as this makes it very fragile and increasingly vulnerable to Black Swans. (read Nassim Taleb, and Joseph Tainter). Remove the vested interests, and you still have one big mess. NOT as simple as you think. Also add in to the picture what Richard is saying about simple economics (which you are not considering at all and is the main reason for the development of all the above). Again, your “solutions” are pie-in-the-sky.
So OK, I will stick to the real world to get my point across.
Right now, you are right, we are both dependent on this civilization to get our food. No denial on my part there. I wish to become slowly more independent (one reason I am involved in alternate energy despite the problems I speak of above) and I believe that this is much more realistic in the long run from the paleo perspective as that is much more in line with our ability to survive in whatever environment (but certainly not the only reason I follow this lifestyle). For now, I am as dependent as you. I do not deny that I am a zoo human as well and might always be one. But it is my view that there is no life without death. Even to grow fruit trees, creatures must die however indirectly that comes about. This is the story of life on earth, and as hard as you wish, there is no escaping it.

Mango, how can seasons end? The reason there are seasons is because the Earth’s poles are tilted at 23.5 degrees toward the sun. It was that way long before humans trashed the planet, and it will be that way long after humans go extinct.

@Al, or could I have jumped to the wrong conclusion, and the only reason you oppose at all CAFO methods, has nothing to do with the plight of the animal, but is more to do with the quality of the resulting meat?

This shit is going too fast for me to keep up with – full time job and full time school gets in the way, so I’ll respond here.

CAFO animals are treated poorly to increase profits. The result is less than desirable animal food. These two concepts are intricately connected. My first and foremost reason for eating what I choose to eat is my health and wellness. To that end, CAFO meat sucks, but will do if I can’t hunt (or otherwise source natural meat). Of course, I do not like that the animals are treated poorly, but this is not the driver behind my motivation.

I can’t control most of what happens in this world, and even less just outside my own house and tribe. And this is where paleo, or paleo 2.0, or archetype, or whatever you call it, is couched – natural lifestyle. We can’t, and should not, pay too much attention to, and give too much concern to what goes on outside the borders of our respective tribe. It’s drives monkeys insane when we do it to them (overpopulate) – see japan zoo.

I get where your coming from w/r to animal rights, and it is noble, maybe more of human concept than humanity itself, or at least, possibly, an evolution of humanity. We here generally promote the human condition, as an animal. Evolution may take us beyond that, but for now, the evidence is showing us that we are still animals, and acting as such is pretty damn healthy. Moreover, acting otherwise is crippling.

You and I, and others to others, have been through hunting – the proper kill, veganism killing babies, fruits not being natural anymore… and so forth. We’ve had this out a number of times, and it does come down to what you state: belief. Powerful stuff.

This issue is moral in your eyes because that is what you’re fixed on. It is not about morality in my eyes because this exists above morality – its nature. Being conscious, thinking, and rational human beings, we can both run this into the ground forever.

Choosing to live and let live is not the way of the universe…. anywhere. We can claim that we are above this because we are higher thinkers – but it actually only made us sick. If you think about it, we will evolve to eat high grain, or maybe even vegan diets as well soon enough, and thrive on them. We may not recognize out future children, but it will be evolution… and then our conversation may be moot.

You know what, I just follow the good science. What is so hard about that? But even without science logical thinking and critical thinking should tell you that a vegan diet is not optimal. It just doesn’t make sense. Like religion doesn’t make sense. But people like to hold on to their fantasy.

@Lente, how should logical and critical thinking tell me that a vegan diet is not optimal? I have encountered countless long term vegans in good health, fitness and youthfulness, and far more omnivores in failing healths. You claim to be the follower of science and rational thinking, and yet, state so matter of factly “it just doesn’t make sense” with no thoughts to back up your claim. Religion and veganism are 2 very different things. Veganism is not a cult any more than giving women the vote is. Religion is about the unfathomable, about spirit and life after death, about dieties, not diet. veganism is about acknowledging the sentience of other beings, about acknowledging that when you get down to the nitty gritty of it all, other humans and other animal species have more in common than most humans care to acknowledge. It’s about feeling empathy for others, and theoretically putting yourself in the situation of another who is clearly being treating in a manner we ourselves would be up in arms about. The one thing veganism and religion do have in common, is that both have an underlying teaching of rights and wrongs, these are in many ways tangible subjects, that we as humans can philosophise about and reach conclusions on. There is nothing more fantasyfull about veganism than humans voicing their disapproval of wars.

“The paleo thing is really of little consequence as your diet besides the avoidance of wheat grain seems to be not too different to the one I grew up on and failed with.”

But Mango, this is precisely the single most important facet, IMO, of the paleo diet (once, of course, you eliminate processed foods altogether). Elimination of wheat makes all the difference, more than elimination of dairy or legumes. You could be eating a multitude of various vegetables and fruits, the occasional meat dish, nuts, seeds, and dairy, but if you still feel like shit it’s likely that it’s because of your hearthealthywholegrains. Heck, I ate like that for most of my life and suffered bad allergies every spring and summer. After cutting out a majority of my wheat intake last year I’ve had minimal trouble from allergies. Energy, focus, and mood have all improved as well.

So to say that the paleo concept is of little relevance just because it happens to be omnivorous, and SAD also happens to be omnivorous, is a bit disingenuous. It’s like me saying the whole raw thing is really no different than lacto-vegetarianism because you don’t eat animals. I know you don’t believe that, and I don’t believe it either, so why even mention it? It’s a petty and weak argument.

@TC, you experienced great benefit from cutting out wheat products. I accept that. But I’ve met many many people including myself, who experienced health benefits from cutting out dairy. Sure, I experienced yet more benefits when I cut out grains too, I’m not denying that, and I’m not trying to say one is worse than the other, they are both bad. I read a fair bit of literature about the instinctive movement which originated in France a couple of decades or more ago, their philosophy was that primitive ate everything unprocessed and unfired, and that dairy was a definite non-no.. in a way their philosophy made much more sense than the paleo thing, which seems to believe some benefit can be gotten through 3rd degree burning ones flesh before consumption, and drinking the milk of other species. It seems many of you oppose CAFO methods, and yet, to feed you all the dairy you need seems quite unrealistic by any other method.

If one is truly paleo, one will not eat dairy or legumes either, especially dairy. Think about it: does any other animal drink the milk of another species OR continue to drink milk once it’s able to eat solid food?

“If one is truly paleo, one will not eat dairy or legumes either, especially dairy. ”

True. Dairy and legumes are not true Paleo foods, or grains or refined sugar. Most people follow some variation of the 80/20, 90/10 rule.

Presently, I’m doing a stint of pure paleo: no dairy (I would use butter and sometimes, small amounts of cheese), no white potatoes (sweets are fine), no white rice (I used some occasionally). Most importantly, no eating out at restaurants. In a week and a half the results have been impressive.

You know it’s funny. In heavy dairy consuming countries, such as Switzerland, lactose intolerance can be considered’ a disease, but in reality, it’s the adults who CAN produce lactase that are in the minority. In fact, it’s estimated that 75% of all adults are lactose intolerant to some degree. Not surprising, seeing that humans are the only animals that continue to drink milk after weaning, not to mention the only species that drinks the milk of another species (not counting domesticated pets that are sometimes fed milk)! Adults who are NOT lactose intolerant are the result of a genetic mutation that occurred around the time cattle were domesticated in northern Europe, or so I’ve heard.

“It’s like when you point the finger at a vegan child that dies, and ignore the fact that omnivore children die far more frequently (albeit, perhaps because omnivores outnumber vegans by a great deal)”

The distinction Mango, is that while probably the same PERCENTAGE of omnivore infants and vegan infants die of, say, drowning or auto accidents we’re talking here about vegan infants dying of malnutrition in a modern world chock full of food on demand. That is the point. Hell, it’s downright hard to find a story of an omnivore baby dying of malnutrition/starvation. Neglect, perhaps, but the ironic thing about the vegan baby deaths is that it’s not _intentional_ neglect. These are situations, in fact, where parents are simply in as much denial and as self-deluded as Harout has demonstrated himself to be, so far.

“But really there is no such thing as “the vegan diet.”

Agreed. So what you are saying is that there is significant flexibility. Well, a matter of perspective perhaps, but in my book, the absolute elimination of animal sources of food (when even all herbivores eat animal sources) counts as far more restrictive than flexible. True flexibility in the context of real food is paleo: Kitavan to Inuit, equator to arctic circle, sea level to 16,000 feet and everything in-between — from meat, fish, fowl, vegetables and fruits.

“In your debate with Harley, you accused him somewhat of arguing more against omnivorism than against the paleo diet specifically. You had a good point, except that you were doing the self same thing, and really just arguing against veganism, rather than his particular brand of veganism.”

Not quite, Mango. Harley argued against the SAD and painted it Paleo because he knew a lot in his audience may not know the difference, much. I argued against _raw_ veganism because that’s what my opponent was advocating. My intro and conclusion makes that pretty clear:

@Richard, Hell, it’s downright hard to find a story of an omnivore baby dying of malnutrition/starvation. Last time you opposed what I wrote about the obese omnivores dieing.. I guess you had a point as you wanted to see a case of a paleo child dieing, this time we are clearly talking omnivore vs vegan, and plenty of omnivore children die from diet related illnesses, not least of which is obesity. Which is most definitely malnutrition.

I don’t see Harout demonstrating self denial, he genuinely does not want to harm animals, and is doing his best to find a way to do that. It is possible that he may succeed as have many other conscientious objectors to flesh foods.

As for the liver vs fruit, I am not into quantity or eating things for their supposed nutritional content, but rather into enjoying my food.. something I never did while eating liver. And no doubt while you sit and eat your 4 oz of liver, I will sit happily munching on a durian and be not the slightest bit envious.. Unlike harley, I don’t calorie count, and eat far far less than the quantities he feels the need to consume.

Sure, I am saying there is significant flexibility in a vegan diet, otherwise you would not have 3rd generation vegans living happy healthy lives..

“I guess you had a point as you wanted to see a case of a paleo child dieing, this time we are clearly talking omnivore vs vegan, and plenty of omnivore children die from diet related illnesses, not least of which is obesity. Which is most definitely malnutrition.”

You really are trying hard to not see the point. For one, paleo vs vegan is a fair comparison, not omnivore. “Omnivores” eat Hot Pockets and Pop Tarts and wash it down with Big Gulps. Even paleo vs vegan isn’t the right comparison because there are now so many junk food vegans if the section at Whole Foods is any indication.

The point with the vegan baby deaths is that you have intensely health and diet conscious people having their babies die of malnutrition and that’s something that ought to give pause. That’s the point.

It’s that the antithesis of intentional neglect is actually causing de facto neglect.

@Richard, Actually, you asked for omnivore diet deaths. If we’re talking more specific comparison, then show me a vegan child that’s died of nutrtion being fed on a wholefoods vegan diet. And why chose wholefoods vegan diet, when you’re debate with harley, and the focus of this blogpost is low fat raw vegan.. now show me a death attributable to LFRV?

@Richard, typical, I have not evaded anything. I have answered your question. If you have another point, you should state it clearly, but it seems you are unwilling to do that.

You asked for omnivores, your words, when I countered that, you told me i was missing the point by providing omnivores (duh?!), then you tell me it’s about paleo vs wholefood vegan, and yet, now we’ve narrowed it there, you are unable to show me a vegan child that died specifically on such a diet.. and equally unable to show a lfrv baby that’s died from being lfrv.. now what exactly is you point richard?

“The Le Moaligous weren’t derelict. They owned a health food store. They obviously cared about food and nutrition. They wanted nothing more than for Louise to be strong and healthy and live to 100, but their holistic veganism complicated and undermined their efforts. If omnivorous parents were trying that hard, would their child be suffering from a b12, albumin and vitamin A deficiency? Not likely. There is a perniciousness to the vegan version of caring about food and nutrition that often leads to worse outcomes than not caring about food or nutrition at all. …

“Saying that veganism did not kill Louise Le Moaligou is like saying Christian Science has nothing to do with the death of a sick child whose parents withheld medicine because they were praying for a cure. Yes, it’s bad parenting, but bad parenting that is a product of ideology rather than a lack of caring.”

The irony of the whole paleo vs. vegan debate is that there is actually a HUGE amount of overlap between the diets. Fundamentally, I see the big difference as being that veganism allows ideology to hold the reins, whereas paleo (or paleo at its best; perhaps Paleo 2.0 as defined by Kurt Harris) is empirical and pragmatic, not ideological. This isn’t to say that paleo has solved everything, but it is open to self-criticism and self-correction.

Good point. To illustrate with an example, I follow paleo/low-carb blogs for 6 years now (Richard’s, wholehealth source, Fathead, Drs.Eades, Peter’s and others) and they were all fairly anti-carb. Then came Kitava, instead of denial and censorship, as would have been the case with the banana-cult, the new data was analyzed, looked into, theorized and integrated in the framework. The theory was extended and refined and now Kitava is integral part of the “paleo-movement”.

If there is any significant issue to discuss here it is the instances in which people ruin their health on a fruitarian diet and all of the other fruitarian just tell them that they are “detoxing” after 8 months or that they are healthier this way, or that blood tests don’t matter, etc. That’s a problem and while some vegans are all right some are nuts and willing to compromise the well-being of young and gullible people for the sake of an ideology. That doesn’t really happen with the paleo/primal crowd. Trouble-shooting is usually easy and there are some misguided people but the crazies get weeded out. We care about the health of others instead of simply trying to propagate a dogma by going “look look, this chick got thin!” Hmm, who muddies the issue by doing that? I wonder…

What can a fruitarian say to a fruitarian who is failing other than “stop being a fruitarian?”. Of course they don’t seem to do that.

I need to note here that on her website she notes that the majority of her weight lost was because of digestive issues, although to be fair she then says that she believes that the reason she hasn’t gained the weight back is because of following raw vegan dietary principles.

Most comment systems let you embed limited HTML. Be careful, though, as it’s easy to miss an angle bracket or quote and there’s no edit facility.

Yes, that’s another important article. You’re not saving animals by being a vegetarian…all you’re doing is pushing the death off-camera. “Population shrinkage due to habitat loss” is a nice way of saying “We killed them in order to plant more grains.”

My name doesn’t need to be mentioned as you are all familiar with me already. There is not much more to add onto the topic of my journey as its all listed above and my post on 30BAD.

I understand your guys’ concern for my health and the help that is being preached. Richard mentioned earlier that he had one of his guys email me and ask me questions here and there about my diet and the lifestyle that i follow. Me and him had a great chat for a while. There were things that i agreed with him on and inverse. Deep down, great guy, great chat. Our talk lasted about an hour and if you guys have any questions im sure he can answer it for you. Like i said, at the end of the day, it doesnt take a rocket scientist to tell the difference of my two images. But i deserve a little respect for my honesty. My life experiences and my gathered knowledge, right or wrong makes me who i am. If i fall , i gain strength from coming back up. Thats why i am walking in these shoes right now. Sure my performance has dropped, why should i lie. However if 80-10-10 was any other fad diet that promoted all the selfish things in life i would have dropped in and said DONEZO long time ago. But my feelings at a genuine level have changed. I CARE for the animals. You may all say they die anyway…But do any of you have that one thing you care and love for. This is one of mine with the addition of basketball.

If i was just chomping fruits and vegetables to live a fat gaining free life , its a different story.
But this is so much more than that for me. You guys all care to help me right ? I care to help the animals. Hope thats respected to a mutual term at the bare minimum.

Some say its a religion, but thats only if we make it a religion. We have to realise to live life peace and relaxed- mindfully . Its a tough thing a master , but a beauty once mastered.
This goes for all Caring people out there that follow any diet. Sure, looking good is feeling good. NO DOUBT. but that’s only one side of it. To be honest i can care shits less about a so called “diet”.

Its about helping one another out , the debate will live, but peace should always be sustained. There is no need to point fingers. Its like getting into a fight with someone , “oh he started it he said this and that”. You cant have an argument without someone else, without another end at the rope . Dragging it yourself is always an ease.

There is successful people on both sides in my honest opinion . I feel people should do what works for them. Im not a pushy person. Forcing isnt good.Its like, You dont go force yourself to take a piss when nothings coming out.

I like sharing thoughts , its always a hot discussion, to anyone i rejected on facebook. You may contact me at my e-mail. I may be 17, but thats a number. Its what you fit in those years. Dont judge me off age. I respect the ones older than me, why? Because they have more experience. But at the same time their experience is greater in a field than one other. If you want to get to know me and my life or have questions, email me. Everyone lives a life, everyone records their own personal film of their lives in their mind as time goes by. If you want to rewind at the end to point fingers or have a good laugh at good times, go head. Everyone has their downfalls and their uprisings. Thats what makes you who you are.

At the end of the day i approach everything with gathered knowledge, im a determined cat. I always go after to get what i want in this age or the next. Just give me the infantry and ill make the best out of it. Im glad im going through this, im real glad. *smirks*

So you’re willing to sacrifice your own health for the sake of an animal’s health? Sounds like an odd decision, but to each their own.

My main gripe is with vegans who claim their diet is healthier than an omnivorous diet, not with vegans who admit their diet may be worse in terms of personal health. If they want to live less than optimally with their soylent yellow, so be it.

(I do object to claims about veganism being more moral than omnivorism, though. )

Hi Harout, I hope that gathered knowledge includes looking into alternatives to intensively-farmed livestock, such as grass-fed animals. I care for animals too, which is why I only eat/use products from animals that are mostly free to live their natural life (ie eat grass, ruminate and laze around), until the time comes for them to serve their ultimate purpose, which is food for humans. We are meat-eaters, and to deny that is to deny your human nature. You’re not reducing animals’ suffering by not eating their products. And my health, and the health of my family is of the utmost importance to me.

Animals don’ t have to suffer to feed us – and when the time comes for slaughter it is much quicker and less stressful than being hunted by a pack of lions (whose meat-eating ways none of us even begin to question. Oh, except Mango, who thinks that we can change their nature too, by setting a good example and not eating meat….but that’s crazyness for another day).

Hey Harout, thanks for sharing. There’s a sea of information out there and sometimes it can be overwhelming to try and navigate through it all and decide at the end of the day what is best for oneself. I wish the best for you on your journey for health, no matter how many different roads and diversions you may have to traverse to get there. It’s a learning process.

As Liz Downunder said, there are ways eat meat humanely. But to go further, eating plant food does not save animals. That’ s just a fact of life, animals still die in the production of the fruit and vegetables you eat, habitat is destroyed in many cases. If it’s not local food, then animals die when it’s transported, as well, along with an increase in ones carbon footprint than eating local creates.

I raise some of my own meat, the rest I buy locally, I know the animals and that they are raised humanely. This is a very important part of why I eat a grass-fed diet, rather than eating factory farmed. Being part of the grass-fed movement I also believe this is a far more productive way to put an end to factory farming as well, not eating factory farmed animals takes you out of that loop but does nothing to send a real message to those who are trying to destroy small local farms. Just a thought.

My health was damaged by vegetarianism, I wasn’t even vegan. And I mean FOREVER. I can never get my health back now, although it’s improved significantly eating Weston A. Price style. So, yes, I do worry about your health considering your age because you are doing irreparable. Please consider looking into the grass-fed option as an alternative to doing this to yourself. I highly recommend Lierre Keith’s “The Vegetarian Myth” which discusses not only the health issues, but also why grass-fed localvorism is a more positive radical approach to fighting against the cruelty of factory farming, as well as being a better environmental choice.

You could be eating without undo cruelty, yet be healthy and playing basketball better again.

This is one of those “moral” pro-vegan stances that drives me nuts, and it gets even harder to justify when looking at the Banana crowd. Being vegan isn’t saving the animals or mother nature, it is killing them both in order to provide the needed land to grow the vast number of fruits and vegetables a vegan would need on any give in order to get enough calories to survive; then there is the issue of transportation and preservation of the foods over a long period of time, say winter in the northern hemispheres. Now if someone would fill me in on where everyone on earth would be able to gain access to that much fruit on a daily basis, that would be great; am I missing some extra planet of fruit in our solar system?

That’s why I can’t agree with Vegan ethics its all predicated on if we do A, then B will be the result, but when you look at the science you find that that the result will be something ethically undesirable.

I live in Central America and can’t get local fruit every day of the year, except for a few citrus fruits. There are 3 or 4 months a year where fruit is abundant. No human existing before the world economy was established was able to follow that kind of diet.

Your story is sad and funny at the same time. Sad because you are obviously damaging your health out of an misguided idealism about animal welfare. Funny because you think people should respect you anyway. I tolerate what people like you do, like I tolerate all the insane things people do in this world, because I can’t do anything about it, but fortunately for me I don’t need to respect anyone.

It was a big step for me when I realised that, just because I believe people should be allowed their own beliefs, does not mean that I must respect said beliefs. Sometimes one side is just plain wrong.

the standard belief on this site seems to be that fruit makes you end up looking like a POW, so can they really have it both ways ??

as mango pointed out, there are successes and failures on both sides…

clearly you are having some issues that seem above and beyond your current diet, unless you are seriously overconsuming for your expenditure….ignore 30bad’s guidelines and make sure your input an output are balanced…then, time to check up on the thyroid business

The fruit is not the problem, it’s what he is NOT eating that is the problem, he needs to eat animal flesh.

If a human male refrains from eating animal flesh he loses the characteristics that make him male, as evidenced by the two photos of the young man in question.

The ridiculous diet he has adopted has clearly thrown his endocrine system out of whack … bad enough in a grown up but much worse in a 17 year old … he should be eating protein like crazy, that is what athletic coaches advise young athletes to do.

“it’s what he is NOT eating that is the problem, he needs to eat animal flesh.”

prove it

maybe you are right, but without proof it is worthless and just as redundant as much of the advice given on 30bad

clearly, there are some issues here, and some kind of imbalance but you are fundamentally disrespecting his right to continue to eat in a way that doesn’t cause any harm, as he sees it (regardless of any of your arguments to the contrary)

the changes that need to be made, might be possible within a raw vegan framework (just you prove that they aren’t)

and what is this about eating protein ??….last i heard, humans make protein out of amino acids..to eat animal protein is to have to, first, break it down into requisite amino acids to, then, build usable protein…..maybe i’m wrong, but if i’m not, it sounds like quite an inefficient way to go about it…..

there are many sources of protein in the plant world, and it seems our friend has absolutely no issue in eating large quantities to get it…so maybe he needs more….maybe more than he is getting through a RAW vegan diet, but there are ways to supplement his protein using cooked vegan sources….

you are fundamentally disrespecting his right to live without causing harm to other sentient beings….his age has nothing to do with it, it means nothing….you are missing the part where he actually has less health issues at the moment….i feel quite confident that with time, certain of these issues would even out, though in hi position i would be getting some testing to rule out deeper issues

Prove it? Tell you what. Provide me all the calories and protein I need from fruits and vegetables MINUS the fiber and I’ll eat them. HUMANS ARE NOT
EQUIPPED TO DIGEST FIBER!!! We are not ruminant or hind gut digestive.

how can i take what you say seriously, when you advocate consuming all that sugar without the necessary buffering that fibre gives ??

in one of harley’s vids (he’s not the only one to do this trial), he measures his blood sugar, post fruit meal with a blood sugar monitor…aside from a slight, expected, lift there are no real issues; certainly none that support the diabetic accusations…..perhaps you would run the same experiment, then compare the results to eating the same meal, juiced, and devoid of fibre

the proof i’m interested in is that all our friend’s issues would be solved by just eating meat…..it is not your fault that he is not willing to try

his issues, as some have pointed out, likely start and end with thyroid problems and his elimination of medication

i don’t need to read about digestive anatomy because there are many people thriving on a lifestyle without flesh, way past a ‘reasonable doubt’

we might not be ruminant or hgd, but that is why fruit is predominant in this lifestyle, with greens making up any shortfall

i also support your stance of warts-and-all posting…..pretending that there are no issues (and sweeping the evidence of those that do have issues, under the carpet) is what undermines it all….

stick to your guns and forget the ‘flex’ shot nonsense…it means nothing…..harley wants it his banana and eat it, posting outdated pictures of opponents to prove a point, then asking you to disguise your truth in the hope of preserving a good face

i commend you for all of this, and have every faith that, with proper guidance (perhaps widen your sphere of influence) that you will continue to make gains (as you have reported, despite your weight gain, you have been experiencing improved health in other areas)…..

why anyone would advise you to go back to what you were doing before (as if being ‘cut’ is the only signpost for health), is beyond me….you were not happy with your health then, it appears

You are incredibly articulate and intelligent for a 17 year old. Many people twice your age can’t communicate as well as you do. I think this will serve you well as you continue to learn and experiment. As others have mentioned, it is entirely possible to eat animal products ethically, and unlike how Durianrider likes to portray paleos, we aren’t KFC gobbling maniacs, although I do cook with lard. I render it myself from pastured pork fat. I haven’t eaten fast food in years and don’t eat packaged foods either. All of which is irrelevant, just thought I’d mention it. If in the future you don’t get the health benefits which everyone is promising will come, you can eat eggs, dairy products and other animal products which are humanely produced, in which the animals suffer absolutely no ill effects in attaining them.

What allowed us to evolve into the humans we are today is the eating of fats and meats. Hominids started scavenging bones that predators couldn’t break open in order to get to the very nutritious and high fat marrow inside. There are some cultures which eat quite a bit of fruit,not as much animal products. You will find that they are in warm, sunny climates that can support the growing of fruit most of the year, but they also get a lot more sunlight, vitamin D, which helps control the inflammation caused by the consumption of large amounts of fructose. Just some things to think about as you pursue the right diet for you.

Glad you had the courage to come on in. Unlike at 30BAD, you’ll find you can say whatever you want here. There’s no catechism to follow, for everyone has their own way of deploying evolutionary principles.

“… at the end of the day, it doesnt take a rocket scientist to tell the difference of my two images.”

True enough. But the point is that what it does seem to take is a bit more that a cloistered clique of ideological adherents to be of any help whatsoever.

How many of those 30BAD folks even hinted that you might be on the wrong track for you? Not a one.

And yet, that’s where you take refuge. For example, you’re latest post at 30BAD:

How many of the commenters there said anything like “wow, Harout, there’s a lot of comments there. Maybe there’s some info or advice in there that would be helpful.” Nope, not a one and not a hint. You know what they’re all concerned about? That this post is up and it might make them look bad because of their association.

This rather strikes me as similar to the battered wife who keeps going back for more, time after time.

But you do what you want. And incidentally, if you wish to have a more balanced assessment of the debate than what is possible from Harley’s sycophants, here:

I wasn’t intending to post a pic today, cause at the end of the day, this topic, its just another thing we look at , smile -move on. Regardless, whats best for me will be found in the end. I’m open arms to listening advice. But at the end of the day I am going to make my own decisions , whether i face regrets or bumps down the line or not, making my own decisions is going to make me who i am at the end, its going to make my life. You were ‘Tipping the scale at 235 (5’10), at over 33% body fat ‘ at one point right? You found what works for you and stuck to it. I left my previous diet for a reason. Internally i was feeling like a 1969 VW Bus. This diet makes me feel better than i did on any other diet internally. That’s what brings a grin to my face. They think visual appearance is the only aspect to life. There is so much more beauty in the daily things i do/we all do in life. All ive been hearing for the past couple hours is- ‘harout this, harout that’. I don’t know about you guys, but jumping to conclusion gets you nowhere. Its like stating the effect before a cause in any given situation. It doesnt work that way. Do what makes you happy Rich and ill do the same.

Im up for questions, not for people dont know how to ask one. Cant expect me to be who you want me to be if your not gonna be who i want you to be. We do what we do for a reason. 😀

P.S. Dont sit there and act like you care(: , sure you care to act like you care to make yourself say you accomplished looking good ” so lets go after the 17 year old cause hes easy to penetrate”. Better luck next time. Everyone’s selfish, in this day or next. *smirk* Im not a science freak, but i can find my way through the maze life’s given me. Intelligence not ignorance.

It gets me how nothing gets me or gets too me .
Richard all i can point out to you is “Well welcome to a real life experience, then.” , Not the first time, and not the last. I may have fallen but ill get back up just like all of you have done, ive gotten to my most successful events in life myself. I dont need an “animal” to hold my hand. Thanks but no thanks

You always stress that ,however you misaddress the point. You quoted what i said, did anywhere within what i posted on 30bad say that i was having problems internally?

It was designated towards a difference in my performance . Its funny how a group like you guys that doesnt promote much exercise want to grasp my interest . My performance has gone down, but why would i want to make it any worse by taking advice from people who dont engage in much physical activity. “Do it briefly and intensely; not too often and not too long. Once to twice per week for 20-30 minutes each is plenty.” Hm richard, go hunt your meat down every time you gotta eat it. I guarantee you that youll be doing more exercise and running then that. And im not talking about man made weapon hunting. Im talking about using what mother nature provided you with.

You know Harout, I had a great deal of respect for you before this post, but you are wearing it thin. I respected you for making your struggles public, for standing up to Harley for demanding a ‘flex shot’, for coming on here and talking, for a while, civilly about what you’re doing.

But now you’re coming here and accusing us of using you to further our “paleo cause” (as if there is one), and ignorantly talking about what “our lifestyle” dictates, and now hurling personal insults. I guess you’re free to say what you want, but you’re not winning any friends here.

There are many, many paleo crossfitters that do much more exercise than what you describe, and I can guarantee you that that program will improve your game performance 110%. Of course, why would you want to do that and jeopardize your membership in that fruit cult?

If you were in my shoes , and someone claimed that they had the intention of helping you. Would you prefer That person emailed you privately to help you out. Or point fingers and expel your name with wrong intention. I know if i truly cared about someone id go with option A, if i cared for fame, id go with option B. Its like i dont want to accuse anyone, but whats thrown at me has to be defended.

The point, Harout, is not to exercise and train just to exercise and train, but to do so purposefully, for quality and real results.

“And im not talking about man made weapon hunting.”

Oh, the vegan propaganda, again. The problem, Harout is that so many vegans are so shallow in thinking, nobody ever questions the bromides and you end up with the ridiculous spectacle of a fruit guru chasing around kangaoos on a bike.

But here’s the thing, man’s chief hunting weapon is his mind. All else is merely derivative.

You put your pics up on 30 bananas no difference Richard putting them up here. Only difference over here people will give you truthful advice without need to censor themselves because scared of expulsion. Even you censor yourself when corresponding to that douche bag Durian but you are free to speak your mind here.

As I told you on Twitter, you yourself made you public. I didn’t post your private journal or photos, nor would I have. When you put stuff out on the Internet as I do with open access you do so with the implicit understanding that other might link to it and/or quote it. Moreover, there is an implicit presumption that by putting something on a widely read public forum, a poster is aiming for some form of wide distribution.

As far as a desire to help, I stated it plainly:

“So, folks, assuming Harout may get wind of this post, anyone out there want to offer him some real help and guidance? Some real love? Please take a moment to do so. And also take a moment to share this with Facebook Friends and Twitter Followers. You never know who you might save from embarking on a similar path of self destruction; one that’s enforced by denial & delusion and encouraged by cultists.”

My aim was twofold:

1. Get you as much info and perspective as possible from as many different voices/sources and possible. Clearly, this has been accomplished in spades.

2. Have a post that will draw other seeking information on going vegan or raw vegan and have the same information available for them. Well, this blog averages about 5,000 visits and 10,000 page views per day, but yesterday, Sunday and a holiday, 8k vistits and 15k page views, and those stats have already been exceeded today, with six hours left to go in the day. Success again.

You misunderstand Richard then. His intention isn’t only to help you, it’s to help anyone and everyone who may be facing what you are facing. That can’t be done through a private email. Plus, most people, yourself and myself included, aren’t in the habit of making our email addresses public. So then what? The only way to reach you was to link to your voluntarily-made-public story on this blog right here, with the commentary we thought would benefit you.

Its quite interesting to see what denial will do to a person. Calling him out for these comments isn’t fair. Sure he’s acting like a punk, just like alcoholics act like assholes when their loved ones express concern. Most alcoholics don’t have a group of people they look up to telling them “those people concerned are just selfish” etc (some do).

You look like shit, Harout. You’re growing boobs. Reality is best summed up by primalcynic’s Failblog post (below).

If you’ve got a future in basketball, throwing that away for a diet that is hurting you is foolish. Especially when the diet is resulting in animal and environmental harm. How many animals have to die from “pest control” (organic or otherwise) to get all that fruit to you? How much land is being sucked dry of nutrients to produce that fruit? The truth is your diet is killing more animals than actually killing an animal for food, and there’s no way around that. Know that every time you eat there’s animal deaths going into your food’s production.

To lead a 30BAD lifestyle is to ignore evolutionary biology, endocrinology, physiology, nutritional anthropology.

Bottom line, hopefully you realize that you’re throwing your passion away for nothing, and setting yourself up for permanent damage to your health. If a diet that results in animal death but not animal consumption is worth that to you, so be it. But please, read information from other sources before deciding for yourself what to do. I’d bet many here are well versed in vegan information, not just propaganda. Seems like 30BAD people have no clue what paleo lifestyle is all about.

Ah, Harout. You know, I have five kids, ranging in age from 28 to 16. I know that you’re not going to listen to anyone who disagrees with you – especially a bunch of adults who are telling you that you’re wrong. So let me just say that in a couple of years when you’re fatter, your acne is worse, your grades have gone to shit because of a lack of mental clarity and you’re regretting your lost basketball scholarship, I hope you remember the comments here and realize that no one will point a finger at you and say “I told you so” if you have the maturity to admit that you might have been wrong.

I’ve actually killed several animals with my bare hands…. that’s not an issue.

You can kill a rabbit by stepping on them. Other animals will die from exhaustion, just keep them moving, very easy to do. I’ve killed fish just by putting them on the ground. I’ve killed other animals just by putting them in water. Many an animal has died by falling off a cliff, being driven by humans…. No weapons necessary.

My brain is my favorite tool.

Kill a deer, and see just how long you can eat well with that. We’re talking weeks, at least. So, if I was hunting all of my meat (I already kill the 90% of the meat I eat), I’d actually be exercising less. Meat is extremely easy to harvest, and because it is nutritionally dense, it is easy to live well on a decent sized animal.

Harout, I have a relative how has been a strong healthy vegan for many decades with no loss of muscle mass. I do go without meat sometimes as well. I would strongly suggest you look into doing veganism that is in line with science. Jack Norris RD has a fantastic website on the subject.

When I do low-meat I eat lots of oysters and clams, which are not sentient (http://www.slate.com/id/2248998/) and provide massive amounts of nutrients that other plant foods are low in. It only takes ONE oyster a week to get plenty of taurine, b12, zinc, and other important nutrients.

Harout, thanks for coming over here and posting. I hope everyone’s been treating you nice.

My only comment is, if one of raw veganism’s claims is that you should feel better on this diet, that you can live cleaner while not participating in a flawed system that abuses animals, then why, WHY, should it be that once you start, it has to get worse before it gets better? Yes, the body needs time to adapt to a new way of eating. This happened to me when I first ate beef, and again when I ate fresh raw vegetables pulled right out of the garden (upset stomach on both counts; my body just didn’t know what to do with them). But your body should adapt in two weeks tops. You let this continue for 8 months? And sacrificed your dreams of playing ball?

I’m not trying to push my diet on you. I agree that each person needs to find what works for oneself. But if in 8 months your performance has truly suffered, you have put on fat and lost substantial muscle mass, and even if you are retaining more water (people seem to think retaining and losing water is a nonissue, but it does matter), then you must, as a self-responsible individual, retain your skepticism of your chosen lifestyle. You can continue to care for animals on your previous veg+fish diet. Caring is demonstrated by your actions, not by adherence to a set of rigid rules.

On your website you say “I wonder who got in your head that easily….” Have you ever stopped to consider that the 30BaD moderators have gotten themselves inside your head? It’s more difficult to catch when you have shared values, but sometimes those who share your same compassionate values can be manipulative of you too. I don’t have a problem with all of the 30BaD folks, but I wonder about Harley. How can anyone who is so malicious toward other human beings really turn around and care so much about the furry animals? True compassion should be universal. I feed stray city dogs as often as I give my leftovers to the homeless.

Now that you’ve posted here you’ve become part of our FTA family (just like Mango whether he knows it or not). If you ever decide that what you’re doing is not working for you, you’re welcome back here any time.

“How can anyone who is so malicious toward other human beings really turn around and care so much about the furry animals? True compassion should be universal.”

This is what I”ve always wondered about radical vegans too…where’s the love for ALL fellow creatures, including humans? They seem to despise us (and therefore themselves) for being human, which is the manifestation of an inferiority complex…

When strength, performance, and well-being deterioriates, you become *less and less* able to help those around you. Please take that to heart. Especially since you may have a family one day. Believe me, as someone who aims for optimal health, strength, longevity, and performance, its not just a “see how good i look!” ego trip, its a matter of thriving in order to be a ready resource for those around you, those you care about the most.

One other thing… You say you care about the animals, obviously that means different things to different people, but most of human history before the age of industrialization of foods as commodity, animals as a food source were cared for and cared about. Deeply. Consuming their flesh is an act of respectful consecration, not murder.

You probably have heard a trillion different reasons, possibly are so overwhelmed with attention right now that you have no idea what the hell to think. So, instead of throwing out opinion, I just want to ask you a few questions.

1. You obviously care for animals, and don’t want them to die. What about those who die in the production, transportation, and aftermath of all that raw fruit you’re eating? (This will require some thought other than watching the the big semi-truck or oceanliner delivering the fruit, example: the aftermath of all that CO2 or destruction of land of nutrients being diminished)

2. Which diet made you actually feel better? Faster?

3. Can you explain to me, and everyone, what REALLY is wrong with being a strong, muscled, chiseled individual?

4. Why do you let durianrider push you around?

You seem like an intelligent individual – but what bugs me is that it seems you aren’t using your intelligence for critical thinking. Paleo, meat-eating, fruit-eating, whatever – I just want you to see that your outward appearance IS a sign that something is wrong. Whether that manifest in the form gaining weight, getting acne, throwing up your food, you name it.

“At the end of the day i approach everything with gathered knowledge…”

Harout, my heart aches for what you’re going through. It does not make you a quitter if you change your current diet. It makes you smart, determined and wise.

Please gather more knowledge as it’s apparent that your current knowledge isn’t sufficient enough to keep you healthy. Please check out the Weston A Price Foundation, read Lierre Keith’s book, check out testosterone magazine, archevore.com, read lots and lots of information on health and nutrition from all sides. Most all of us have done that and that’s why you see people from all walks of life and previous diets here – SAD diet, low fat/high carb diet, vegetarians, vegans, etc… We just want to be healthy and eat as nutritiously as possible.

After you’ve gained a greater variety of nutritional information try something new for 30 days and see how you feel, look and perform. Then try something else for 30 days. Keep reading and learning. Just doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results (or the results to change) is the definition of insanity. Haven’t you given your current diet plenty of time to show better results? Is it worth giving up your ball dreams?

You said: “I’d rather show my struggles so that when im on the top, they knew i went through the struggles. its the way to go. I dont regret it at ALL. I love what im doing and if i didnt i would have left long ago when i first experienced the problems. This is to a moral level , not about the mirror liking the way i look.”

Changing your diet to be healthy and to get to the college level in ball makes you a smart student who learns from experience. Please don’t be a martyr for 30BAD!

You also said: “When the time comes like your promised us all that fruit will bring great benefits. I want to be showing them all that the people that failed are the ones that gave up at the early stages and said that fruits didnt work , they made us fat! BS!!!!! I have funny thoughts of myself picturing myself obese 10 years from now on fruits. you woulndt put 10,000 on the line now would you ? lol”

He will NEVER put $10K on the line because he is wrong! Those “failures” are most likely much healthier than they were when they were trying to force their bodies to survive on a diet that was not optimal for them.

I was in a religious cult for 10 years and the blind obedience to what one person says is all too familiar to me. I wish I had spent more time studying the arguments of those who opposed me early on. It would have saved me a lot of lost years. *smile*

You’re a smart guy – a good looking one, too. I wish you the best in whatever you decide to do. Please do stay in touch with Richard and let us know how you’re doing.

It is possible stick to your ideals of not eating animals and still be much healthier than what you’ve become on the fruit-hippie diet. Check out the Jaminet’s book at perfecthealthdiet.com where they have a section devoted to vegetarians.

I would be more than happy if you and your family maximized your health by starting to eating humanely raised meat, but I’m commenting to save your health first, maximizing it can come later.

Why are you ignoring the “gathered knowledge” of your family history? Do you think you know better? Do you think a bunch of skinny, fruity hippies know better? Their diet is impossible over an entire community because a large percentage of the population just can’t live on it, as can be witnessed by the many vegan/vegetarians who quit because of health issues. You are ignoring the knowledge that is right in front of you, something that clearly works. What did your ancestors eat? Why isn’t it good enough for you?

Well, you should be able to eat some eggs then! No harm to the chicken there– they lay them anyway. Stock up. Throw in some beans, too. Why do you have to be raw vegan for animals? Beans, nuts, etc aren’t hurting animals any more than eggs or bananas.

Interesting thing about the eggs – many vegans will not eat eggs because they equate that to abortion. What they overlook, however, is that nature EXPECTS many egg-laying animals to have some of its eggs stolen by predators, so to compensate, those animals lay ****loads of eggs at once to compensate. No predators to steal eggs = eventual overpopulation of a species.

At least if this issue is brought up on Richard’s website, there’s opportunity for a rational discussion to be held without any threat of ex-communication… you know, like when people exchange ideas freely without the fear of being reprimanded or “set out from the tribe”. Oh, and by that I mean like what happens on 30 BaD when any individual poses the slightest sliver of dissention.

See here : ( Former 30 BaD member banned for “experimenting” with Paleo )

“If we learn about human physiology we will see that every cell in the human body runs on glucose ( & the brain exclusively glucose)”

Ha, all cells take up glucose, including every cell in the body of say, a lion. Moreover, brain cells can run primarily on ketone bodies from fat metabolism and the brain’s requirement for glucose will diminish over time from about 120g per day to 60g per day. I have a reference for that somewhere, but not close at hand.

I’m on 30BAD but I’ve been randomly reading this blog since the debate. I enjoy hearing ‘both sides’.

Anyway, I thought that a lion’s physiology is different than ours and they’re either able to convert fat/protein to glucose without going into ketosis OR ketosis doesn’t harm them in any way…
And you say “the brain’s requirement for glucose will diminish over time”, does this happen when our bodies are in a constant state of ketosis, or is ketosis not necessary? And is ketosis actually safe? All I know about ketosis is what I remember from reading Atkins and I was under the impression that it’s dangerous long term.

Every living cell in ever animal, mammalian or not, from herbivore to carnivore, preferentially uses glucose. This is how cell respiration works.

But cells also use ketones from fat metabolism and will also turn up gluconeogenesis (conversion of lean mass to glucose) when glycogen stores start getting low. Some fats, such as medium chain triglycerides (coconut is a huge source) go straight to ketones. This is why high fat ketogenic diets and MCTs have proven very beneficial in the treatment of epilepsy. The brain runs on ketones very well.

There’s only one type of cell I know of that can not run on ketones and must have glucose to survive, grow and divide: cancer cells. Cancer cells are also 30 times less efficient at glucose utilization than normal cells. Sugar feeds cancer.

In short, every human has circulating ketones that they burn for fuel at all times. If you’re a frutarian burning through fat stores you’ve got a ton of ketones. At night when you sleep, assuming you’re not on intravenous feeding, ketone production increases.

“Ketosis” is simply a state where you have a higher than average level of ketone bodies for fuel. And no, it’s not “dangerous” long term (you might be thinking of ketoacidosis, a like threatening condition from untreated type 1 diabetes). You can live perfectly fine in ketosis virtually your entire life. Just ask an Inuit. Ask all the practitioners of various religions that call for regular fasting.

To answer your specific question, yes, it is longer term adaption to ketosis that diminishes your brain and red blood cell requirement for glucose. Carnivores have the ability to make glucose, as do herbivores, as to omnivores like humans.

Now, I don’t know that perpetual ketosis is optimal. I suspect not. But there’s no question intermittent ketosis is extremely beneficial. Vegans and many other health food enthusiasts are always talking about “detox” and specifically, “what to eat to detox.” No such thing because eating in itself is toxic and oxidative. Detox is done when not eating, such that the body feeds on itself, and preferentially on damaged cellular protein (of the mitochondrial sort that can kick off cancerous reproduction) through a process known as “autophagy.”

This ought to make perfect sense in an evolutionary context, where feast and famine was the order of the day. Also, observe what animals do when sick: they stop eating. This turns on detoxification and energy utilization towards healing.

Dr. Michael Eades has a great post, both on the benefits of ketosis and how it cleans our cells:

Now, given the above, about ketosis, cancer feeding only on glucose, autophagy and such, it might give you slight pause next time a fruit guru tell you to NEVER fast and to always eat at least 700 grams of sugar per day.

Here’s another factoid for you: the total volume of glucose in your entire body, i.e., your entire blood volume is 4 grams. Not a misprint: 4 GRAMS! So, if you’re eating 700g per day, imagine the work your pancreas has to do to keep you tightly regulated at 4.

The cancer topic is very interesting, and it does seem that a lot of studies show a correlation between a diet that causes high blood sugar & cancer. But in the LFRV diet a person’s blood sugar level actually doesn’t get too high. When we eat fruit in it’s whole natural form it doesn’t cause a spike as long as we don’t consume lots of fat. Fruit has a relatively low GI, especially compared to white bread (at least raw vegans & paleos agree white bread sucks, right?). So I wonder if there is really any extra work required of a LFRV’s pancreas given that their blood sugar levels aren’t high? I know some people at 30BAD have tested their blood sugar levels and they were always normal so it’s not just theory.
If you’re really interested in a low fat raw vegan diet (even just to debate it) I’d recommend reading the 80-10-10 book instead of just debating what Durianrider says. I think you’d find it interesting and it’d be cool to see a paleo’s take on it.

Robb quoted from one of the medical textbooks that all medical students have and use in their classes. I don’t remember the exact reference as it’s been a few days since I listened but the quote was that KETONES are actually the PREFERRED source of energy for many of the human body’s organs including the liver.

Good for you on being open enough to consider “both sides” – I have and do continue to do the same thing. This is how we get to our own personal “truth” that works for us. Our bodies are different, have different histories and tolerances. Continuing to learn and try to figure out what works best for us individually is the best way.

No one can care about our own personal health and well being more than we do.

Thank you J.
Its odd how often this main pathway is omitted is discussion. And I correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t most of the keytones produced daily, used by the brain for enzymatic like processes and the actual burning for fuel only begins after a few days of glucose reduction.
NGP

I had to check the exif data in those photos to be sure it wasn’t a hoax. As far as I can tell, it looks genuine. This isn’t even about going paleo, dude needs to go back to what he was doing, whatever it was, then add 20% more quality calories and he’d be a warrior.

I’m also concerned about the welfare of animals. It’s why I use my money to buy animal products that were farmed using humane and sustainable farming techniques local to my area. Simply refusing to buy any animal products is one way to reduce animal cruelty but fruits and veggies are not a big competition to factory farm animal products. Taking your money away from the factories and giving it to the smaller farms with better farming techniques gives you more bang for your buck.

I’m sorry, but I can’t get excited about anecdotal evidence like this. These are pictures of a kid posted on a whacked out forum by people with absolutely no concept of what science is. Discussing a case based on only pictures and a personal account is folly. This is extremely poor evidence and certainly is not science. One person is not a study. There’s nothing here but assumption on all sides.

More a comment on these threads, and yea, I got your drift. Just a big pissing contest.

I’ve spent too much time this morning reading that site. I can’t say anything intelligent about it. Nothing. There’s not one objective, intelligent thread over there. The stuff they try to pull off as science? Is lame too lame a word? I spend a lot of time exploring real solutions backed by real science for people with real problems: diabetes, dis-lipidemia, CHD, etc. There’s only one logical conclusion: sugar kills! Christ, I just read a thread where buddy was calling a 359 TG value normal because some whacko doctor selling a book says it is. Jeebus!

We also have to take into account the teenage mindset. He’s in high school, and if we put ourselves in his shoes, most “boys” his age that are ectomorphs look thin and ripped. As a former ecto-hardgainer myself, thin and frail from those days, I can tell you he sees the added weight no matter how it physically looks as a definite plus. His thinking is “I gained x pounds” plain and simple. It won’t be for many years that he’s able to look back and says, “Man, I was ripped” – by then he’ll have to work his ass off to get back to that level of BF like the rest of us 40-somethings.

Well i just left a comment over there on 30 bananas a day, since i have a membership from my vegan days. I’m sure it will be deleted shortly. Hopefully this guy may get a chance to read it and do some thinking. He doesn’t look good.

Wow – I thought only a steady diet of Beer and Doritos could do that !!

Let’s hope his parents see the 30bad post, sit him down and talk some sense to him. Fortunately, he is 17, and many (most??) 17 yr olds go off half-cocked in at least one way or another… He’ll come to his senses.

Were I his parents, I’d hire a lawyer to look over 30bad and see if I could get some satisfaction. He is a BOY, and idiot-brains over there ought to have some respect for his parents and tell him to go to them for advice.

This kind of thing REALLY pisses me off. If someone was handing advice to my kid *without* my consent and knowledge, I’d kick him from one end of the state to the other – the LONG way.

Protect your kids. It ain’t just Catholic Priests you have to watch out for anymore!

I think this is the first article you’ve put up that makes me have a raw visceral reaction. I want to find that kids parents, they are letting him throw away his future because he “feels bad” for the animals, honestly kid, what the hell is wrong with you. Giving up a chance at a college scholarship because of your religion. I hope his parents tell him to pay for school on his own, that life lesson will teach him to throw away the gifts God gave him (sorry Richard, we can’t all be atheists). I looked up his facebook profile, he still has his “fit face” as his profile pic, if he’s so proud of what he’s doing, change your profile picture, let the world see you look like someone who’s on a bunch of corticosteroids.

I see that Harley’s only contribution is some fucking moronic justification of b12 injections because other non-vegans are doing it. If you don’t get what is coming to you in this life, i hope someone curb stomps your idiotic ass in the afterlife.

He’ll probably just fade away back into drugosphere one of these days after his insane chick dumps his insane ass. The dude deserves no attention, but unfortunately, like many sociopaths, he is screwing up a lot of people.

Oh shit the joke is on all of us he actually mislabeled the pictures turns out he had them reversed!

Seriously though and I know I’m being a cynical asshole here and maybe I watch too much Lewis Black but if you go from looking like an underwear model to looking like my Uncle Ted drinking beer in the morning on his couch in his underwear and you don’t realize what it is that you are doing is bad for “you” then “you” are a fucking moron.

It is comical to me that this kid is going to throw away his basketball scholarship (assuming he has any talent) and probably lose his girlfriend and no to mention his good health on the misinformation provided by that waste of a human (banana eater). Well I’ll offer this career advice to the kid since basketball isn’t likely to pan out. WalMart is always hiring and you seem like the kind of cat to go far in their organization since they prefer to hire gullible sheep and people they can take advantage of. Who knows he might even make it to head cashier that would make his parents really proud. Speaking of parents I find it hard to believe in 8 months they haven’t had an intervention with this little idiot.

This kid is the perfect example about vegan dogma and their twisted bullshit and how things like logic, science and common sense are thrown out the window when discussing their diet. I work with a vegan and as we were discussing the paleo diet he says to me that he thinks it is funny that us meat eaters are always saying that vegetarians don’t gain bulk muscle and look relatively weak. He says he always tells them then how do you explain bulls then. Seriously… how can you argue with a idiot and what does that make you if you try to.

I can say that I really don’t feel bad at all for the kid though he strikes me as having the mindset of a lemming and the intelligence of the modern human sheep. In all likelihood he was probably going to end up getting talked into swallowing spiked kool aid and trash bags the next time a comet rolled around our system anyways.

Vegan diets make it impossible to think clearly (great candidates for cults as you say), because our brains require fat (especially saturated fat) to function correctly. A vegan diet is great for the corporations and the pharmaceutical companies. They get to sell you their genetically modified crops, and you get depressed and wind up taking their anti-depressants and anti-psychotics.

Having been a vegan for about 13 years and not died from it (though I was not healthy, ever, in those years) I think this kid should eat what he wants and experiment. If he wants to be zitty and gain weight and call it “detoxing” then that is his choice and no amount of ranting on here will change that. It might be wise, in our opinions, for him to eat less fruit and consume, at the least, more other vegetarian or vegan foods, if that’s what his ethics want him to do. But a low-fat raw vegan diet is an extreme form of veganism and doesn’t represent the way most vegans eat. My biggest issue with this situation is DurianRider’s RUDE fucking comments to this kid regarding the pictures, as well as the comments by a couple other members of the 30bad site.

DurianRider has the WORST arguments for everything, it just boggles my mind that people can even take what he says as anything more than the ramblings of a crazy homeless man.

A direct quote, for example: “Why compare a shot when your the fittest ever vs a shot when your not as fit? Its like me putting up a shot of my knee after an accident and say this is what my knee looks like as a vegan and then showing a photo of my knee with skin and no blood and saying ‘this is what my knee looked like as a non vegan’. The haters are gonna run with it. Fat people will say ‘wow! that guy is obese, I better eat more KFC and make sure the fries are cooked in lard’ see fruit DOES make you fat! When all that is really happening is your comparing yourself when your fitters vs unfitter and wondering ‘why?'”-DurianRider )

Where do I even begin with this nonsense? “Fat people will say ‘wow! that guy is obese, I better eat more KFC and make sure the fries are cooked in lard’ see fruit DOES make you fat!” How is that the conclusion one comes to after looking at these pictures? Are you serious? Not a single person on this thread has made that sort of asinine assumption.

And then there is this comment from another member on the 30bad site (note the sarcasm): “Look, going vegan gives you acne !! therefore you should continue being a murderer! Murdering is the cure for acne!”-RawBenny )

RawBenny, is this seriously the logic you follow in your life? It isn’t even about vegans vs. omnivores or killing vs. not directly killing. It is entirely possible that this 17 yr old child could do well just adding more VEGETABLES back into his diet or, god forbid, some fat. My skin has cleared up so much just from eating less sugar and more healthy fats. None of the comments in this thread have said that “veganism causes acne,” however, these pictures SUGGEST that the diet this person eats, the diet backed by those on the 30bad website (a low fat raw vegan diet high in fruit), has caused HIM to gain body fat and acne. Shaky ethical ideologies do not belong in discussions about health and nutrition, especially when the person with potential health issues is a child.

I understand and respect the fact that people will eat what they want. I think everyone should eat what makes them feel and look their best. This might mean a Paleo diet and it might also mean a vegan diet. I hope this young man explores some other ways of eating and settles into something that works well for him, regardless of whether it is what I, or anyone else, including DurianRider, agrees with.

“Why compare a shot when your the fittest ever vs a shot when your not as fit? Its like me putting up a shot of my knee after an accident and say this is what my knee looks like as a vegan and then showing a photo of my knee with skin and no blood and saying ‘this is what my knee looked like as a non vegan’. The haters are gonna run with it. Fat people will say ‘wow! that guy is obese, I better eat more KFC and make sure the fries are cooked in lard’ see fruit DOES make you fat! When all that is really happening is your comparing yourself when your fitters vs unfitter and wondering ‘why?’
”
-DurianRider

Isn’t that like the pot calling the kettle black?!?!?! Look what he’s done to unflattering pics of Robb Wolf, gary Taubes and any one else even remotely associated with the whole Paleo thing… jesus what a dildo.

i just would like to say that i feel this is really an unfair picture. lots of people at 30 bad r saying that he should look into blood tests bcuz something is clearly wrong. its not the general consensus that he just needs more fruit lol. this is a guy who struggled with thyroid issues…it is my opinion that this issue has not been resolved. i do believe it is possible that 811 could solve it but i am of the opinion that in the mean time he should supplement iodide/iodine or take natural thyroid meds. it could also be a vitamin d or b12 issue…i don’t want to get into an argument about that as i am sure u know the vegan response. either way, he was NOT happy with his health b4. did he look better? yes…but the outside is not a good indicator of the inside always and vice versa. eventually an overall healthy person should match both inside and out but that often isn’t the case. he was calorie restricting….one can not deny that if one restricts for a while and then eats normally they will gain. one can not deny that undereating and hard training can lead to burn out… it is possible that the weight gain is simply caused by that though i think the acne is a clear sign of hormonal issues. not that acne can never be detox…but it goes away quick usually. i know people can down on 30bad peeps cuz they accuse people of doing the diet wrong or having some other sort of issue if they are not getting results…but if someone were to come on here and say paleo doesn’t work and i tried it for years and u asked them what they ate and they say a loaf of bread a day u would tell them the same thing. anyhoo, it is clear that both diets are not working for him at the moment and we must see why. he wasn’t happy b4 and he isn’t 100 percent happy now though he admits he is happier on this lifestyle despite the fact his outside doesn’t match.

i must also add how i don’t understand how one minute u point and say look vegan/fruit diets make u a stick and then the next say it makes u fat! huh? explain it to me if u have a good response (scientific). i just wish vegans and paleo people could talk about these issues less emotionally. i don’t pretend that i could be that person but i really wish that we could just talk about this more scientifically and stop pointing fingers. we are after the same thing aren’t we (well not maybe ethical only vegans). we are all after health. and tho we have different approaches maybe if we communicated better we could both get closer to the truth. having these extreme sides are blessings! if we were to actually listen to each other we could learn from each other, not necessarily how to eat, but learn about health and maybe one day we can find out what the actual truth is bcuz i don’t believe that either diet can be proven as 100 percent proof…i think at this point some faith is involved becuz there is just too much conflicting evidence. that is why i try to stay open.

“I must also add how i don’t understand how one minute u point and say look vegan/fruit diets make u a stick and then the next say it makes u fat! huh? explain it to me if u have a good response (scientific).”

The point is that individuals respond…individually. One size, like, “Did you get your 3,000 calories today?” does not fit all.

“i just wish vegans and paleo people could talk about these issues less emotionally.”

That’s probably too much to hope for, at least at all times. But emotional or not, open conversation is still good and that’s what you get here and what you don’t get at 30BAD.

” the outside is not a good indicator of the inside always and vice versa”

What about getting knocked down a level on his Basketball team because he “cannot keep up” and “cant train as hard as [he] used to, the gained percentage of fat slows [him] down a bit.” If this is a thyroid issue, why did it only manifest/worsen after changing his diet?

“..say paleo doesn’t work and i tried it for years and u asked them what they ate and they say a loaf of bread a day…”
That’s not doing a Paleo diet wrong, that’s “not doing a Paleo diet.” Big difference. If someone eats LFRV and includes Fish, they’re not eating LFRV. Incidentally, this idea about “doing” a diet for years with no health improvements brings up a good point about duration: how long does this LFRV “cleansing” phase I keep hearing about last?

I TOTALLY agree with you regarding communicating better. I actually posted that one DurianRider’s blog as well as the 30BAD site but both comments were rejected and my account was disabled.

“i do believe it is possible that 811 could solve it ”
No. No it cannot. Paleo can’t solve it. 811 can’t solve it. SAD can’t solve it. A diet can mitigate or even emliminate the symptoms of thyroidism but it can not be cured. (if you are hyperthyroid you can opt to have part of your thyroid destroyed to regain the equivalent of normal function. But I wouldn’t call it a ‘cure.”) In the face of actual facts what you “believe” about it matters about as much as a fart in a hurricane.

“in the mean time he should supplement iodide/iodine or take natural thyroid meds.”‘
Synthroid and dessicated pig thyroid are your options. Synthetic or animal based are your options. Increasing iodine intake (and Vitamin A, Selenium, and coconut oil) can help, but it’s not. a. cure. (Avoid cruciferous veggies like broccoli and kale – they can impede thyroid function)

” it could also be a vitamin d or b12 issue”
No. Like I said above you have the causality backwards. Because thyroid function affects metabolism it can decrease the amount of b12 you absorb. And the symptoms for vit. D overdose and deficiancy match none of the symptoms of thyroid disorder. Spend a minute googling before you say something like that.

“one can not deny that if one restricts for a while and then eats normally they will gain”
If one also goes off the medication for underactive thyroid – which causes a slowed down metabolism – one will also gain and very quickly.

“i must also add how i don’t understand how one minute u point and say look vegan/fruit diets make u a stick and then the next say it makes u fat!”
Skinny-fat is a real thing. During the worst of my hyperthyroid issues I was skinny fat. I dropped 40lbs but nearly all of it was muscle. I might have been in size 6 jeans but I was puffy and had no muscle tone to speak of. I was both skinny (size six jeans) and I was fat (I was skin and fat and bones).

“he was NOT happy with his health b4.”
He was hypothyroid and he took his meds for a whopping seven days. No shit, he didn’t feel healthy. Additionally one of the whammies of thyroid disfunction is that it affects mood and mental function. It can mimic depression and anxiety disorders. The havoc it wreaks on your mood is exactly like having PMS every damn day of the month.

First you say:
” i just wish vegans and paleo people could talk about these issues less emotionally.”
then you say
“we are after the same thing aren’t we (well not maybe ethical only vegans)”
then you say:
“maybe if we communicated better we could both get closer to the truth.”
Be intellectually consistent. Otherwise it just looks like you’re trying to weenie your way out of a fight you just picked.

“that is why i try to stay open”
My grandad always said “Keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.”

And please use capital letters where apropriate. It’s difficult to read blocks of text where you don’t bother to capitalize properly.

I am glad to know that people at the 30bad website are encouraging him to have some blood tests done. This seems to be the wisest advice people can give to him since, clearly, they are not doctors or educated in endocrinology. Considering the person in question is a child, to suggest anything other than him seeking professional help would just be, well, stupid. If this young man wants to continue his raw food diet, I would also suggest that he get involved with a raw food group that is actually run by a medical doctor, such as that of Gabriel Cousens (http://www.treeoflife.nu/), rather than one run by an unemployed, uneducated dumbass.

Also, it is difficult to take what you are saying seriously with all the “text language” and strange sentences found throughout your statement (e.g. b4, u, …..) Intellectual argument: You’re doing it wrong.

It doesn’t matter which picture of this young man that you look at. This young man looks very unhappy, at least to me. Seventeen is such a young and idealistic age. I hope that he survives this time with enough remaining health to recover.

I have to say I’m a little disappointed with most of the replies to Harout. If your ethics allow animal slaughter from a grassfed farm but not from a CAFO, how do you tell someone who prefers animals to be killed from loss of grazing land vs slaughtered on a grassfed farm that they are *wrong*? His ethics are different than yours. He prefers animals live and die a certain way, just as many here do. This is his choice.

And before you try to argue that his choice is detrimental to his health, please keep in mind that the transformation may be entirely due to his hypothyroidism as already pointed out. Does every single 17 year old eating raw vegan look like him? If not then how can you say it’s 100% due to the diet? I hope most folks in the paleosphere will agree that a person COULD live a long and relatively healthy life as a vegetarian if they are smart about it. It will not be ideal and you will not thrive, but you won’t be on the edge of death every day of your life, either.

I’m sold on the theory and science of paleo eating and if someone argues that veganism is a healthier way of eating, I will engage them. But if they are vegetarian for ethics reasons I let it go. For the same reason I would never tell someone their religion is wrong.

“I have to say I’m a little disappointed with most of the replies to Harout. If your ethics allow animal slaughter from a grassfed farm but not from a CAFO, how do you tell someone who prefers animals to be killed from loss of grazing land vs slaughtered on a grassfed farm that they are *wrong*? His ethics are different than yours. He prefers animals live and die a certain way, just as many here do. This is his choice.”

Kyle is absolutely, 100% right to point out this inconsistency, which is why you will never see me advocate grassfed over CAFO on the basis of ethics, but on the basis (besides health & taste) of _values_. If I was starving I wouldn’t give a shit and neither would you. But since I can afford the premium I can afford to hold the value of a more natural, humane approach to farming.

Rights simply do not and can not apply to animals and any effort to do so with put you right into the same sort of contradictions Kyle pointed out.

“…the whole movement is based on a single—invalid—syllogism, namely: men feel pain and have rights; animals feel pain; therefore, animals have rights. This argument is entirely specious, because man’s rights do not depend on his ability to feel pain; they depend on his ability to think.

“Rights are ethical principles applicable only to beings capable of reason and choice. There is only one fundamental right: a man’s right to his own life. To live successfully, man must use his rational faculty—which is exercised by choice. The choice to think can be negated only by the use of physical force. To survive and prosper, men must be free from the initiation of force by other men—free to use their own minds to guide their choices and actions. Rights protect men against the use of force by other men.

“None of this is relevant to animals. Animals do not survive by rational thought (nor by sign languages allegedly taught to them by psychologists). They survive through inborn reflexes and sensory-perceptual association. They cannot reason. They cannot learn a code of ethics. A lion is not immoral for eating a zebra (or even for attacking a man). Predation is their natural and only means of survival; they do not have the capacity to learn any other.

“Only man has the power to deal with other members of his own species by voluntary means: rational persuasion and a code of morality rather than physical force. To claim that man’s use of animals is immoral is to claim that we have no right to our own lives and that we must sacrifice our welfare for the sake of creatures who cannot think or grasp the concept of morality. It is to elevate amoral animals to a moral level higher than ourselves—a flagrant contradiction. Of course, it is proper not to cause animals gratuitous suffering. But this is not the same as inventing a bill of rights for them—at our expense.”

I say, if you REALLY believe in animal ethics despite your inherent taste for meats, you should only eat wild animals you hunt yourself. Breeding animals for the sole purpose of feeding humans is not exactly fair to the animal, who did not choose to be born.

“Cattle, unlike other wild animals, allowed themselves to be domesticated. Humans complied and domesticated them. A covenant arose between humans and cattle in which we provided for them and they for us. We kept them safe and allowed them to breed and survive as a species; they provided us with meat in return. It’s been a great bargain for all sides. Although any individual steer trudging off to slaughter may not see it this way, the covenant has been a godsend for the breed, which has grown and prospered. There is a wonderful book titled The Covenant of the Wild detailing this animal-man symbiotic relationship that should be on everyone’s bookshelf…”

____
if your ethics allow animal slaughter from a grassfed farm but not from a CAFO, how do you tell someone who prefers animals to be killed from loss of grazing land vs slaughtered on a grassfed farm that they are *wrong*?
_____

I’m so fed up with that. I’d consider myself as paleo, but it always creeps me out whenever someone brings up that argument.

First post and this definitely called for it. I’ve been an avid reader and your site is one of the couple that lead me back to eating animal. So, kudo’s to you, bro!

This is a bitter reminder of the “hell” I trudged being a vegan for two years. I will say, for the most part, I felt okay on it. I mostly credit that due to all the prep work I did (soaking, sprouting, fermenting, etc all my grains, nuts, seeds, legumes, and so forth as well supp’ing B12, K2, etc) But this exact kid reminds me of how not optimal it was for body composition, performance, and strength gains in the gym (Again, I say this personally.) I didn’t have the strength and athleticism I did as an omnivore.

As two years closed in, I started to bloat more, have more digestive stress/issues, and just started to feel very lethargic after my meals (That were mostly high carb.) I looked in the mirror one day and over the two years, I slowly lost my physique I had as an omnivore. I finally realized it wasn’t working out and my mouth was watering at the thought of a piece of steak. It was time to listen to my body.

I broke my vegan edge with a grass-fed sirloin and sweet potato. I felt better from that meal than I had the last years worth being vegan. I am now Paleo and feel 10x better than I did on a mostly raw vegan diet (only cooked thing I really ate was quinoa or amaranth for dinner.) I’ve went back to sub 9% body fat, strength has returned, feel amazing after meals, and have boat loads of mental energy.

If I could speak to this kid personally, I would tell him to unplug from the web and plug into his own body. (Guilty as charged: Would DEFINITELY tell him to eat animal, haha.) My vegan experienced was initiated as a dare from a friend (lame, right?!) It’s crazy how you can jump on a band wagon to try a fad diet/something.

Listen to your body, study your heritage/genetic line, and see what works best for you is really what I do now. But I can honestly say that eating more paleo/primal (with exceptions to a small piece of grandmas cookies or whatever because I’ll miss her and her baking when she passes away) was the best choice I made in terms of diet. See’ing this kid listen to an “Adult” (Which I would HARDLY call that idiot Duriandouche or w/e) saying HALF the retarded stuff he says, I would advise him to get away. It boils my blood because I am a Health & Physical Education teacher so I always strive to make sure my students are making the smartest decisions for their health. This, however, is not a wise one (IMHO) and seeing Durianisachild go about it (as well all his ways) is childish, immature, sad, pathetic, and really needs to stop.

Long live Free the Animal! …brb, my beef liver and sweet potato covered in coconut oil is ready. 😀

Ahha, Nice catch Christina. I actually am Straight Edge, but I don’t care to label myself as it since there are a lot of foolish punks out there giving it such a bad name. I’m humble about it, not a “better than you” typical edge kid. I more-less used vegan edge since it’s so committing (like straight edge.)

So here’s what I don’t understand: You have this person Harout who has clearly gained body fat(and possibly lost muscle mass, though I won’t speak to that directly lest haters come after me) and the crew over at 30bad is telling him it’s okay, he looks better with a little more “padding”, that he looked like a drug using older gym rat in the first picture, ect, ect, ect. Okay, fine, if you think he looks better in the after then that’s your business….however, then you have threads like this one:

Where you have a guy who is totally ripped and even larger in muscularity than Harout had in the before picture and the 30bad crew goes wild over how great he looks(which to be fair, he does!), asking for tips, calories/macros/ect…how’d you do it kind of posts….In none of the comments is it suggested that he looks like an older guy juicing(though I’d compare his body to that of Mark Sisson, who is always accused of juicing by Durian), or told he’s too muscular….

Yup, that’s the point I was getting at. And by the same logic the lfrv “wins”, gaining fat and losing muscle eating a lfrv? well who wants to be a ‘roided out muscle-y freak, you’re doing great!!! getting ripped, strong muscle? well, clearly a lfrv works and who needs all those animal products!

Not to just outright knock the guy, but does anyone else find it suspicious that 1) there are no before pics and 2) he went out of his way to avoid having his face in any of the pictures, but his avatar is his face? Makes me wonder

People need to keep this in mind when thinking about how zealouse and radical Durianrider is.

This is take from his website 30 bananas a day:

“Mentoring with Durianrider is $1750 AUS for a 30day intensive block. *Unlimited emails *Weekly phone conferences *Raw Plant Nutrition, Lifestyle and Exercise programmes designed for your goals of where you want to go and where you are now. Conditions apply eg: I only take on clients that are prepared to really raise their standards. I have a no BS approach. i will tell you what you need to hear rather than what you want to hear. When your ready to stand up and commit to hardcore health and happieness, then let me know and lets RAWK N ROLL! My Contact details: [email protected]”

That’s funny that Harley charges this much for mentoring, yet at the same time, he accuses lots of other diet pushers of only being after your money and trying to sell you supplements. In fact, he accuses Mark Sisson of being on stimulants in order to perform ordinary daily functions LOL.

30Bad is all about denial of any contrary evidence no matter how they have to twist their minds. For example, deleting posts and comments in their forums if they are contrary to their message.

I happened to stumble on Freelee’s page on Facebook. First post was something alone the lines of, “The brain ONLY runs on glucose!” That’s just factually wrong (it *preferentially* uses glucose), but can run just fine on a mix of glucose and ketones. I pointed that out and she backpedaled a bit (“I meant ideally!”). I pointed out that her original statement is still factually wrong. She deleted my comment and PM’d me saying she doesn’t want anything contrary posted on her site.

They do have a point, though. Fruit is the only food that doesn’t need to be cooked or have flavoring added to it to be enjoyable. All other animals eat what naturally appeals to them, but humans (and human-bred animals) seem to be the only exception. After all, no human would salivate at roadkill, whereas a true carnivore or omnivore would.

You may be projecting your own cultural biases and conditioning onto the whole species. Having travelled most of the world and lived abroad for 8 years, I can tell you that what’s “normal” to eat varies widely and one man’s delicacy is another’s repulsion.

Google “children eating raw reindeer” and then click on the images tab and look at some of those pics.

I doubt it. Just palatability , and the availability of all sorts of cooking methods, herbs, spices, sauces, etc. ive had raw meat and it’s fine, and things like steak tartare Re delicious but there’s lots of other ingredients. Generally I just like it cooked in various ways.

Aha! So you admit that raw meat doesn’t taste good on its own!? The raw vegans all claim that people in general don’t like the taste of animal flesh and not many people will eat meat without smothering it in those herbs, spices, and sauces to cover up the animal flesh taste?

Then again, who eats plain baked apple crisp? Most people add cinnamon and/or (gasp) SUGAR to it! Also, I would never cook an apple myself, since I am an impatient person – I’d just end up eating the apple raw!

“After all, no human would salivate at roadkill, whereas a true carnivore or omnivore would.”

My family and I were watching a Food Network show and did salivate as they sliced through some beef making 1 inch thick steaks for the recipe. My young sons both commented on the dense white fat on the meat they love so much to eat raw. I also love a raw boneless skinless chicken thigh that I do not season and often eat by itself. A side dish with raw meat might be a plain avocado and/or some raw milk cheese. I do not crave fruits at all. I have no desire to eat any type of fruits and cannot remember the last time I had fruit.

I am human and once saw a dead deer on the side of the road…and I did salivate.

If roadkill makes you salivate, you’re clearly in the very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very small minority. If you’re not lying, then surely you can just sink your teeth into the deer carcass and eat it, blood and all. That’s what true carnivores and omnivores do, and they don’t get sick because their stomach acid is 20x stronger than ours are, so it kills all the bacteria and parasites in the deer.

I do not know how long the deer had been there or legal issues for dressing one out on the side of the road ; ). I eat raw chicken, seafood, beef and eggs all the time. I love it. It taste good and makes me feel great. I have been eating raw beef for 15+years and raw chicken approximately 10 years. I have never been sick from raw meats or eggs. I am not lying, why would I? My husband has told me stories from his hunts in Africa and I still salivate. I am looking forward to learning to hunt deer and do want to try the warm, fresh kill. Before agriculture I do not think I would be the minority.

so because road kill doesnt make us salivate we are true omnivores or carnivores? I think there is a difference between the word omnivore/carnivore and animal. We are not animals. So that doesnt mean we cant be omni or carni vores. Let me guess you think because we dont have fangs and claws that means we are true hunter right?

Where the heck do you get edible raw meat? You certainly cannot find it in the typical grocery store! Part of the reason a LFRV diet (currently) appeals to me more than a meat-based paleo diet is because fruits and most vegetables are the only true convenience food – they’re either immediately consumable or require very little preparation time. However, if I could eat meat the same way, then a paleo diet would appeal to me too, along with the belief that we can force our body to burn fat instead of glucose, therefore allowing us to go for long periods of time without eating (granted, we’d have to eat lots of concentrated foods when we do). After all, wild animals eat what’s convenient for them, so why should we have to eat what isn’t convenient for us?

I was in Whole Foods (I prefer to shop local farms that humanely treat and naturally raise their stock) but do shop at WF sometimes and I asked for a boneless skinless chicken thigh (just 1, not 1 lb) and the butcher asked what I planned to do with “it”. My response: eat it. He asked how I was going to prepare it (btw, I also asked him not to put it in the plastic bags as they impart a nasty taste). I explained I eat it raw and then went to the end of the counter to get some steaks…also to be eaten raw. I ordered 4 and the attendant said if I would eat some chicken raw he would give me the steaks for free. I agreed. He took bets in the back from fellow workers, came out and chucked a boneless skinless chicken thigh at me which I ate in front of his astonished co-workers (wonder if I should have asked for part of the profits?) and then took my steaks (with FREE written on them) and put them in my cart. Every time I went into WF when he worked there he would throw me a thigh to enjoy in the store.

I get my beef, chicken, and pork from a local supplier that uses no chemicals and the animals enjoy a natural diet grazing. The eggs and milk are from a local farm that have true, free range chickens and grazing cattle. I still purchase from Whole Foods occasionally and have never had a problem.

Just like you go in and grab a piece of fruit, I can go in and grab a piece of meat. Yum yum (on the meat, not the fruit). I really do not like fruit.

My diet consist mainly of protein and fat. I do not do well with fruits or veges. I enjoy salads with lots of fats (raw marbled beef, raw milk cheese, avocado, olive oil, and bacon) but sometimes veges do not digest so well and I feel poor after eating.

Vegetable is not a scientific term. Occasionally, I do eat some vegetables and non-sweet fruits (cucumber, peppers, tomatoes) as well as bulb vegetables (onion and garlic) on my leafy greens paired with fats.

I practice a Paleo/Primal diet. I eat processed meats. Bacon is yummy and does not make me feel poor so I eat it. Just because I eat raw meat, eggs and dairy does not mean I do not eat anything else. I do not like fruit at all and “veges” are a small part of my general diet. I am not so strict with my diet that I can’t socialize over a good meal and drinks. Yes, wine is not Paleo either but I drink it.

This started as a discussion about salivating at animal flesh not a nitpick of my way of eating. You salivate at fruit. I don’t. I like raw meat and raw fat. I am an omnivore not a herbivore.

I hope someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to recall reading that the modern-day farmed fruit that we eat now bears very little resemblance to the wild fruit our ancestors ate. What’s available to us now has been specifically bred both for size and to appeal to our sweet tooth. So the palatability of modern fruit says little to nothing about it’s health value or whether it’s a “natural” choice.

Honestly I felt bad for the kid, he seemed like he was just confused and reaching out for aid; then he came blowing in here spewing insults and pointing at a picture of him flexing his man boobies and telling us we are out of shape. Frankly I am disturbed by the cultish atmosphere that veganism promotes, and have posted this story on my FB in hopes that maybe a friend thinking about starting vegan will see it and reconsider destroying their mind and body.

he put up a flex picture onto his profile on 30BAD, he says it shows he is still ripped and that no one will think he is unhealthy from looking at it… but if you ask me it doesn’t really prove anything.

As a mom, if I had seen this kind of change in my son, I would assume he was doing drugs. Even if you don’t notice the subtle changes, you would still see your child is getting sick and his performances at school being affected. Poor kid.

On the 3obananas a day list of comments that is refered in the above article the guy admit to “flex” his muscle and take a pose in the first photo and to” let everything hang out “in the second….for me too it doesnt prove anything

You can’t change the world by avoiding eating meat, you can only change yourself and take responsibility of your own self, your actions and your health.

As Buddha teaches this world is Samsara and this life is Dukkha. (dukkha-dukkha, viparinama-dukkha, samkhara-dukkha).

Don’t worry about eating meat, worry instead about yourself and free yourself of Samsara. Don’t waste another opportunity, don’t waste another life.

Embrace your true animal nature, in the end if you eat or don’t eat meat you won’t become Inmortal and you still will die, the big difference is how would you live: with or without a foggy mind?, alert or sleepy?, ready to practice?, with or without a body ready to do daily activities?, with or without health?, thriving or surviving?
Your choice!

Just want to thank you all for your concerns. At the end, no matter whos right/wrong..I realise you guys just want the better for me and i dont want to push my way. Its a tough case to be in my shoes right now, im sure having all this push in direction will be tough on you guys to. I need to isolate myself and see whats right for me in the real world. So the first step to that is to take my blood work and go from there.

WOW! You have NO IDEA how encouraging is that you posted this comment. Please do exactly what you said. Isolate yourself and think about YOUR life. Forget primal living. Forget vegan living. Take blood work and think deeply about yourself and where you want to go. What kind of life do you want to lead?

Bravo young man. I have confidence you are headed in the right direction. YOU know YOU best.

I am primal and am doing everything I can to spread the lifestyle. But, again, stop for a moment and just think. Get the blood work done. Keep us up to date with you decision if you wish.

This is such a HUGE sigh of relief! I really and truly hope the best for you!

You bravely put yourself out there and, granted, you didn’t expect it would go as public as it has, but I hope this is a great learning experience for you and a springboard for you finding the perfect diet FOR YOU! The one that you can do for the rest of your life that will provide optimal performance for your mind, body and spiritual/moral health.

I hope you get the direction you need from your loved ones, your doctors and your own research. I hope you check out links to additional information provided here and I hope you gain even more confidence in your own ability to recognize and act on how you think as an individual as opposed to what others think and how they try to influence you – especially those on 30bad… (they are really BAD, imo). This book reallly helped me ALOT: Someone else posted another Steve Hassan book which is good, too. Another is Shermer’s “Why People Believe Weird Things” at http://www.skeptic.com

You probably don’t think 30bad is a cult, and that’s irrelevant to the book – it’s a great primer on learning to evaluate how people try to manipulate us and can help you in so many different aspects of your life as you will encounter many, many more people like that durian dude.

I hope our next update from you is that you’ve changed your diet to something that works for you and that you’ve secured that full ride sports scholarship and that you’re exited about how you feel, look and perform!

Harout: former raw vegan here, my blog about that is at www dot debbiedoesraw dot blogspot dot com.
I went into it trying to heal my chronic leukemia.. and at first, it did help. but after two and a half years I was underweight, could not digest so much as a green juice and my leukemia worsened.

I know you are in a tough spot right now, but I have to tell you my friend, we (ex raw vegans) are legion. Write me if you want to hear their stories and how adding animal protiens and fats was what it took to restore their health. I get letters from ex vegans weekly and even some begging for my help to get out of doing it.

Yes! This is the comment I was hoping to hear. Check out that blood work! Sounds like you’ve heard the rational responses from commenter’s in that regard. If you take anything away from this massive thread, it’s that thyroid problems are a serious issue that are very unlikely to be solved by one particular diet. The only other thing I would hope that you would take is that some animals (as mentioned, scallops, oysters) could not be considered sentient and can provide a lot of nutrition.

Good luck, keep up the reading of all sides of diet and ethics! (I’ve been a college freezer food kid, a “health” vegetarian, a low-carber and now a 90/10 paleo/primal follower…

Hello Harout,
I feel for you because I once was a vegan. And becoming a vegan for many is an ETHICAL thing that resonates from the heart.

My personal opinion is that omnivorism (I don’t support paleo anymore, just grains in moderation) is better. You don’t have to jump to eating meat but maybe take a B12 supplement and think of getting protein powder (whey would be good…but I guess you could try something like raw sprouted brown rice protein instead, I haven’t tried it but maybe it is good. I tried “hemp protein powder” from Bob’s Red Mill but I hated the gritty texture.)

My point is, if you think of deviating and are worried, going to lacto-ovo vegetarian is not as big a step as going back to meat. When I stopped being vegan, I started eating eggs and dairy but it was about a month until I actually decided to eat meat.

Sorry about my other post, I wasn’t calling you fat when I said you got fat. I meant you gained some fat. I don’t think you’re fat.

I just think you should get protein and B12. I don’t think the protein in fruit and veg is enough or good enough quality. Maybe if you ate nuts. But not just fruit and veg even in that amount. Protein will help you hold on to muscle.

Good luck and best of health to you! Just keep paying attention to your body. You can keep a journal of how you’re feeling, symptoms, what you eat, etc. – looking back on it can help you see your overall progress or problems better.

Make sure to take care of your thyroid issues. Do a lot of research because doctors who are truly aware of the widespread havoc that a dysfunctional thyroid does to your body and quality of life are 1 in a billion. Check out Mary Shomon’s books on hypothyroidism, she is a great resource. She has posted thousands of articles on thyroid.about.com. Do not ever go off meds without testing/supervision because if you have permanent damage to the thyroid tissue (occurs in most cases) no med or food can repair it. The meds just replace the hormones that the gland can no longer make enough of.

You are a very smart kid. I wish I had the ability to step back and re-examine a position when I was your age. Whatever you decide to do, listen to your body and do what is right for you.

And thank you for getting your bloodwork done. I know at this point I probably sound like a shrill parrot – repeating myself endlessly – but after the thyroid issues trashed my health I never want to see it happen to another person.

Harout,
Thank you for telling us that your are going to get yourself tested.

Only you know what is best for you but
1. Those pictures do no lie, you went from hard to soft in 8 months
2. Your physical performance declined

Your ” friends” at 30 BAD lied telling you it wasn’t so, that you actually looked good. I don’t call those friends. The first animal you need to take care of is yourself. There are humane ways of feeding people without sacrificing you.

Take good care of yourself, be healthy and be happy. Enjoy your youth and keep us posted of your progress. I’d love to see you back in that A league!

Indeed, don’t jump straight into another lifestyle. As much as I love living this way, I think you are so right just to take time out to think about what’s right for YOU. You’re young and have your whole life ahead of you. Best of Luck!

Normally I’m the first to think that Richard is unnecessarily crass or judgemental. But in this case, nah. This kid’s a fucking idiot. How he ever let himself get that bad when he’s in the prime of his life is beyond me. There’s definitely a strong future in department store middle-management for him. A day ago he ran back to the 30bad crowd to slander Richard and wallow in the encouragememt from those mouth breathers, the next day he’s back and ready to “isolate himself” and do some thinking about what he wants. Pathetic. Hopefully someone with half a brain got the scholarship instead. Thanks for the great reading Richard, I read every single comment.

Well don’t take that the wrong way. I read every one of your articles, so clearly I’m not that put off by your approach. You do lose me with the conservative Ayn Randian stuff sometimes, but I’m not one of those who’d say you do a disservice to the paleo community, I just think I’m more compassionate than you. Keep doing what yer doing man.

Hmmm, well I’m neither a conservative (far from it), nor a Randian. Even when I read her stuff way back I also read a lot of other stuff. At any rate, as far as I’m concerned, toss her entire body of work out with one exception: “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.” Quite a read.

So I finally read through the comments on the original post; anyone notice how often Mr. Rider likes to talk about erect penises? I’m also kind of terrified at the off handed way he tells this poor kid to start ordering injectable drugs off the internet.

To be honest, I don’t think the fat gain has anything to do with “vegan” vs. “omnivore”.

He didn’t get fat because he ate fruit. He got fat because the 30BAD/811 diet recommends eating huge amounts of fruit. 30 Bananas a Day is about 3500 calories give or take a few hundred. For most people, you’d have to be very active not to gain some amount of fat.

Low protein diets are never good for you, and even if he gets “enough” protein from the huge amount of fruit and veg, he is not getting all the essential amino acids, vitamins, minerals like zinc and B12.

Just as I feel deficient when I go days without fruit, I feel deficient when I feel I have not had enough protein-rich foods. When I was vegan, I would eat so much fake soy meat products. It’s soy protein, which probably isn’t that good for you, but it’s still protein. When vegans eat that stuff, they are fulfilling a craving. Very few vegans have the will to undertake a diet in which they avoid vegan meat substitutes. The 30BAD crew along with the raw vegans and a few other diet groups belong to a minority within the vegan community. The rest of them, eat lots of the fake meats.

weight gain has to do with a lot of variables. the vegan diet being naturally deficient in some essential nutrients such as b12 and iron can mess with our body and create problems even if we’re diligently supplementing our foods ( see interviews with ex-vegans at Letthemeatmeat.com ). if b12 deficiency leads to hypothyroidism you will have weight gain or inability to shed weight..plus the excess/abundance of carbohydrates ( which induces more cravings ) vs lack of satiating protein can inevitably lead to overeating.

That is true. The 30BAD high calorie regimen makes a lot of assumptions. They’re really oversimplifying by saying “eat all the calories you want.” I think what they REALLY mean to say/assume is the more calories (from fruit) one eats, the more one will be motivated to burn off those calories, because consuming more carbs somehow makes one naturally more active, which may be true for some people, but, the sad reality is, we live in a sedentary society…

OH MY GOD, is tis kid on drugs? is he insane? he looks fabulous in the first photo. why is he destroying himself? this is very,very sad. I hope someone talks to his parents about this. This cannot be normal.

I hope people who REALLY know how to interpret these numbers give him sound advice. Ideally, from scientific – non paleo sources so that it doesn’t look like biased information.

I don’t know squat about the numbers but give him props for putting his information out there and being willing to look at the different information he could/will receive. My respect for this kid just continues to grow. He’s being very mature and seems to be handling this spotlight on his life very well.

There seems to be a disparity between these two sources on normal creatinine levels ( the range is higher from MedLine Plus ) but nonetheless, lowered creatinine levels seems to be associated with decreased muscle mass.

The creatinine blood test allows doctors to identify decreased levels of creatinine in the blood. Normal creatinine levels range from 0.8 to 1.4 mg/dL, according to Medline Plus. In some cases, doctors order the basic metabolic panel to check the amount of creatinine, electrolytes and other waste products in the blood. The basic metabolic panel checks the levels of glucose, calcium, sodium, potassium, carbon dioxide, chloride and blood urea nitrogen, another waste product, in the blood.

Significance

Decreased creatinine levels indicate a problem with muscle mass or a diet low in protein. Because the body produces creatinine during the breakdown of protein, less protein intake results in less creatinine in the blood.

Causes

*Low creatinine levels usually occur due to decreased muscle mass. Causes of decreased muscle mass include muscular dystrophy and myasthenia gravis. Muscular dystrophy causes muscle weakness and muscle wasting. Myasthenia gravis causes weakness of the voluntary muscles. The weakness gets worse during physical activity. Prolonged inactivity also leads to decreased muscle mass because the muscles get weaker if not used regularly.”

@ronstar: I can get tests back right away at my oncologist but I agree he was johnny on the spot there. I can’t wait to see how this all plays out. I hope he regains his health asap. A little bit of meat can go a long way towards that goal IMO.
deb

What a punk. He’s going to “take time to sort all this out” or some such crap, and then he signs his emails “in loyalty” two days later? Yo, I thought all the “cult” talk was just hyperbole, but now I’m starting to wonder…

Someone get the origianal pics from the website and look in the properties. Will they show the create dates of those two pics, or when they hit the website. I don’t know enough to know if those properties will reflect the create date of those pictures, but it would be interesting to see.

Thanks for pointing it to my attention. I just took a look at it and in my opinion i’d rather take the whole post down then have it altered. It wasn’t what i was trying to express and that picture has nothing to do with the post.

DR cannot resist because he does not think like most people. Straight @ durianrider:

One of the chief ways psychopaths prey on others is to make use of the normal person’s need to find meaning or purpose in life. They will pose as grief counselors, or “experts” of various sorts that attract followings of people who are looking for answers. They are masters of recognizing “hang-ups” and self-doubts that most people have, and they will brazenly pander to them to gain a follower to use later.

Thanks for letting us know that Harout…in this country we call that censorship.

Harout, have you by any chance seen this thread over on Mark’s Daily Apple?

Check the 90-day progress photos on 3-09-2011

This a a 50-something year old soldier who was in “good shape” when he started but what a difference 90 days of primal eating has made! He is also following the simple Primal Blueprint Fitness e-book (free to subscribers) .

Holy carp, really? I hope you see what kind of “community” Harley has set up there, where they will alter peoples postings to hide anything negative about 30bananas, and where all dissenting opinions are squashed, no matter how much evidence is given.

If you don’t want to eat animals for ethical reasons, that’s fine of course, but I think you could find a much more honest community of like-thinkers out there that don’t mind discussing everything and anything, for or against a particular point of view.

Wow, 717 FB likes and 92 Tweets. Definitely a record. I debated about shutting off comments, now in the mid-400s, also a record, I think, but what the hell.

Whatever Harout does, I wish him well and I hope what he does take from this is how amazing a resource for getting info is the Internet. There is not a doubt in my mind that the very vast majority of the comments here were out of genuine concern, and that goes for the tough love ones as well.

Hate to be this way…but, too much to convince. The site really needs to clean, clarify…and be concise. If I was considering any kind of info and I ran across this link…and clicked on a topic of interest…and saw all the options, I would be like…WTF! and search elsewhere. Maybe it is just me but like Richard’s blog it has to be interesting and concise! Sorry, but what LFRV is gonna search through the links to research? I hope they all do but this does not look like a good avenue…IMHO.

Beyondveg IS a good resource – the articles are written by current and lapsed vegetarians/vegans who, for the most part, are refreshingly honest and unbiased in their opinions on the human evolutionary diet and are not afraid to take on board the wealth of palaeontological/archaeological/anthropological evidence and data available – but, as stated above – it can be a nightmare to navigate!

Yeah when I was looking at it I was thinking something similar. Then I realized not too long ago the ability to sit at home, and pull up a compilation of articles relating directly to something I wanted to look up wouldn’t have been an option. Its amazing how fast technology has taken our minds from viewing something like this resource as amazing, and easily accessible, to “wtf look at all those links! I didn’t even have to get out of my chair while sitting at home to pull up all this information, or do more than move my finger on a mouse a couple of times to access it, but damn look how disorganized it is!!! TOO MUCH!!!” Also, the quality of the content makes it a good avenue, not how pretty and easy on the eyes it is. I assume, like most things, no matter how concise it is if the person doesn’t really want to see, they wont, and no matter how convoluted it is, if the person really wants to know, they will.

the problem with you primal mates is you don’t keep your glycogen tanks filled. your never gonna get healthy when your not eating at least 6000 kcal a day of pure fruit! Eating meat is like going to the local pub and sayin, give me a beef jerky and the pub owner gives you a piece of fruit and then someone hands you a beef jerky. Ya know what I mean mate?

You dudes need to eat more fruit!!!! Just look at durianriders bimbo girlfriend…she eats more fruit than anyone in the entire universe and she is healthy and all natural…except for her boobies which she paid for with durianriders welfare check, but I digress. You should watch some of her new videos cause shes as smart as a doctor…well as smart as a doctor who has no education and is mentally challenged, but I digress.

Sure, durianrider was a drug abuser for years (watch his videos, it shows) and was receiving welfare for even more years and has no education and looks like a stiff wind would blow the fucker away, but hell yeah I would pay him 1800 for some fruit eating mentoring!!!!!!!!! How else would I know how to eat fruit?!?!? Speaking of eating fruit, check out one of his cult followers, er I mean members, videos, there’s a chick who teaches you how to eat a tomato. Doesnt get much better than that mate!!!!!!

There is many benefits to eatin lfrv!!!! Like I dont even need birth control cause I cant get an erection to save my life!!!!!! So fuck ya all. I bet you cant say that!!!! Another advantage is a lot of people mistake me for a holocaust survivor so I get lots of sympathy!!!!!!!! SO fuck ya all!!!!!!!!!

Oh yeah and did you ever notice a banana looks like an erect penis!!!!!! Did I just say penis!!!????!!!! Penis, penis, penis!!!!!!!!

“These are good shots of what happens when people starve emselves and then go and get healthy and the body IS healthier but people are so stuck on vanity and forcing their body to be like a cover model 365days of the year that when they inevitably put on some extra fluid/fat then they break down and blow it out of proportion.”

He wants to call people out for being “stuck on vanity”? What about his sidekick who thought it was necessary to get a boob job? I’m sure she didn’t do it for health reasons. What a fucking hypocrite. BTW durianrider, your girlfriend’s site looks more like a porn site than fruit site. I’m sorry to say it but you both are fucked in the head.

Ag — I agree with you about the 30bad crew being delusional. I joined a short while ago just to make the 30bad crew think cridically. They don’t like me over there because I don’t believe in healing yourself by eating bananas! OMG some of them think you can! I have a degree in zoology and the things some of them say over there is laughabble. I don’t even believe in eating a raw food diet, I’ve been a vegetarian for some time, but it’s fun to watch them trip over themselfs. They say you are what you eat and it’s true for DR and frelee and the rest of the morons because they are bananas and nuts!!!

I’ve been LFRV for almost 2 months now, but I haven’t been 100% perfect… I’ve had some boiled potatoes & quinoa a few times recently… and one major slip-up when I ate some salmon & tilapia about a month ago (I know, disgusting!) Also, I only completely cut out salt a couple of weeks ago, but have still been eating some raw nori. Other than that, I’ve been getting around 2800-3200 calories from fruit on a daily basis (I’m 5 ft, 83 lbs, not highly active), & trying to up my greens intake, being mindful of food combining,drinking lots of water etc.

Lately, I’ve been EXTREMELY bloated (swollen legs & stomach… it’s really noticeable on me b/c I’m so skinny, people have been commenting!) My legs have been getting tingly/numb/”falling asleep” daily, which is really starting to worry me. Also, it feels like my acid reflux is back, even though it was pretty much gone before I even went raw. My digestion is a mess, to say the least. Nothing seems to be… moving. & My skin looks HORRIFIC to the point where even a full face of makeup isn’t helping, there are painful red bumps everywhere! I’ve had bad breakouts in the past, but nothing close to this:(

I don’t know if this is detox, especially because I haven’t been completely 100% this whole time, or if it’s food allergies or something else entirely. I’ve also been getting intense headaches, having trouble falling asleep again (though I sleep plenty), and am constantly tired & moody. I haven’t had the energy to exercise at all, just some walking.

Sorry if this just sounds like a series of complaints, but I feel like my health is just falling apart even more & any help/encouragement would be greatly appreciated. I’m honestly at a loss, since I was feeling really amazing the first few weeks on 811 & now I feel even worse than I did before I even started all this…

She has fructose malabsorption. Most people of European descent do, to some degree or another. It’s why I only eat berries and the occasional small amount of others. EXACT same symptoms. Eating more fruit will only cause her immune system to flip out even worse. She needs to stop. Best way to get back to at least semi normal is to go fruit and veggie free for a couple of weeks. Yes kids, meat is the easiest on your guts. Eggs are good too.

“Meat is easiest on your guts? Last time I checked, fruit digests the fastest of all foods and meat digests the slowest of all foods. Doesn’t slow digesting food = bad and quick digesting food = good?”

It’s not that simple. Sugar itself is absorbed quickly, but fiber takes longer and depending upon your gut health (you have 10 times as many bacteria in your gut as cells in your whole body), can cause issues like bloating and gas. Starch is dependent upon your secretion of amylase in your mouth. Lean proteins digest quickly and whey protein digests very very quickly, whereas, casein takes significantly longer.

Fat takes longer so fatty cuts of meat take longer than say a skinless lean chicken breast. Except, medium chain triglycerides, a saturated fat very high in things like coconut digest about as fast as sugar. They go straight to the liver for quick energy instead of the normal fat metabolizing pathway.

So I think the general message should be: eat a variety of lean & fatty meat, fish, fowl, and get a variety of starchy and non-starchy vegetables, and eat some fruit.

In terms of individual anecdote, however, I find that the meal most gentle on my stomach and digestion is a piece of meat, lean or fatty, and nothing else but a little water.

I suspect I have something serious going on, probably B12 or sodium imbalances in my body, or worse, because my eyes are stark red.

So, I just cheated, if that’s the right word, on SAD foods, to get B12 and sodium up. Then I took more B12 pills, but no go, since I’ve been taking them consistently.

My face and arms feel numb. Sometimes I can’t feel my legs. My head feels numb, I have brain fog. My vision is blurry. It’s been like this for 2-3 days. Should I visit the emergency room, or what? I’m freaking out, you guys, I don’t care what your suggestions are, just tell me what to do that WORKS.

And before you all start on me, NO, I am NOT hypoglycemic. If anyone suggests it, or anorexia, thanks but kindly post it to someone who needs the help.

The poor girl. She said she feels like she’s going to die and and the idiots won’t even tell her to get help. One lady just told her to get some sleep. Are these people for fucking real? Someone’s going to die because of their advice.

I wish there was some way I could message her and say “are you fucking retarded, go now or you’re going to die!” Then again, the first response was “Get the hell off the computer and go to the ER” and she just sort of ignored that with “well I’m hoping someone here can give me advice that isn’t obvious,” waiting for more “maybe the sun and moon aren’t lined up right over your heart” replies.

Yeah I find it interesting that she describes it as “feel like I’m dying” but her concerns are “I don’t want my family to have more fuel against this diet than they already do” and “Dr.s are going to make me eat food to make me toxic-er” and such. I don’t know what its like to feel death coming on. What a weird mentality to believe a diet is good despite an effect so obviously related. Everyone’s advice is “b12″ so they even acknowledge its dietary.

I’m really concerned about Moiraine, on the 19th she said “It’s getting progressively worse over time. I feel like I’m dying, now. Like my brain is on the verge of sleep?” she answered a few more posts that day and has not been heard from in 5 days. Let’s hope she got some medical help in time.

Here’s another success story. This chic went from weighing 120 to 180 by eating 4000 calories of mostly bananas. And now she’s telling everyone how great it is? I can’t believe not one person said STOP EATING SO MANY FUCKING CALORIES! Those people just don’t get it.

Presumably, spending five seconds on Google is all you did.
If you have any of the common causes of this condition, you could live off whey shakes and still be hypoproteinemic. It’s not a dietary deficiency condition. For example, you can see for yourself on the wiki that common link is to nephrotic syndrome. Trying to fix that with eating more protein is like turning up the water pressure on the tap when your bottle has no bottom. Even dietarily the treatment looks more at sodium intake than it does protein intake.

I’m saying hypoproteinemia’s many causes, nephrotic syndrome being a common one, is caused by organ damage, not a dietary deficiency in protein. Also, they are not treated with an increase of protein consumption.

Ok first off the kid got ripped and looked amazing in first pic but you guys are forgetting that he stated that he was starving himself with low calorie to do that.He is now eating more food so thats where the weight gain is from.

Also,In one post he states that he was looking and feeling at top of the world when he was eating”lowfat”.He says that meat was very minimal but all he remembers is “lowfat”.Whats that mean?I think what was happening is that he was eating rice and potatoes and the decline in muscle is due to eating fruit only.I can’t remember where I read it but it was a study on Irishmen who only ate potatoes day in and out and were found to be muscular and in good health.Fruit is low in protein but I am starting to believe that starch based foods can sustain muscle easily.I AM GETTING GOOD RESULTS eating “lowfat”.Bagels and bananas for breakfast,sushi for lunch and alot of rice and potatoes for dinner.I wanna try cutting the small amount of fish out next to see what happens.

Someone changed the “after” picture on his post to the one where he’s flexing (which we all knew would happen – I actually thought Harley would remove the entire thread).

I think the funny thing is some of the comments trying to say “if the admin changed the picture, this is censorship!” Isn’t that what the whole 30BAD site is about? If you disagree, you’re banished from fruitland.

Here is another success story. This poor girl (kyndra) has been on the LFRV diet for 6 months and gained 40lbs. Again, nobody on the cult site was kind enough to tell her to cut back. I feel bad for the people who are falling for the extremely high calorie diet.

Hi guys. Quick intro: I’ve been pretty active on 30BAD for the past 18 months, and have been doing LFRV for 12 months now. It’s been great to see fat come off , more clarity of thought and I am enjoying the strength gains. It’s usually about this time that many people start falling off so I will see what happens.

I think durianrider has made a fool of himself trying to defend the cause at any cost. Obviously the differences in photos does not come down to flexing/not flexing, and that vague, distance flexing photo is not a “recovery” – both of which was durianrider’s main argument. But I’m glad Harout hasn’t fully recovered – considering the lifestyle he was living to create that body.

Let’s consider the actual 30BAD community, the people themselves. The entire premise of Richard’s post – that “not a single one of those motherfuckers is willing for one second to even entertain a whiff of a notion that something just may be rotten” – is pretty unfair.

Read the comments here and you get two themes: firstly, you can’t see any 30BADer showing concern about Harout’s bodyfat going up, and secondly: 30BAD is so tightly regulated and censored that no content challenging the “perfection” of a fruit diet remains on the forum.

Well… can you guys not put two and two together?

Any content on 30BAD that doesn’t praise fruit and veganism gets removed or at least totally chastised by one of durianrider’s aggressive tangents. So… most dialogue with Harout about this was behind the scenes. MANY 30BADers expressed concern for him and what he was doing.

Come on, give the 30BAD community at least a little credit… Look at the results of 95% of the thread – you don’t think the more experienced LFRVers would ask questions with cases like Harout and Kyndra? But these are done in PM’s, phone calls, emails and in-person because obviously durianrider has a tendency to hijack a thread when he has a cause.

Call 30BAD cultish and I would totally agree. If you want to question things, you do it on another forum.
Say that 30BAD’s message board… (totally under durianrider’s censorship control, largely under his social control) is an accurate reflection of the psyche of its’ 6,000 members, and I’ll tell you to think about this a little deeper.

Many 30BAD members (myself included) are often as embarrassed by durianrider as you guys are baffled. I like 70% of his advice and think the other 30% is really, really dodgy. It’s something we tolerate to meet people who eat the same way we do.

Understood. However, it is a proven fact that the leader of a group has the greatest impact on the overall perception of said group or faction. Durianrider comes across as a complete idiot, abandoning logic and reason for dogma and emotion. Because of his idiocy, the entire 30BAD group is dragged down with him. I posted a comment on one of his posts (I think it was the one where he accused Mark Sisson of using HGH) and it was not posted and I certainly didn’t get a response. I used no hate speech. I accused no one of anything. I was respectful. I just had some (I thought) good questions and comments and I was really interested in his reply. I got nothing.

He obviously has no integrity and the purpose of his website is not to advance intellectual thought but to stifle it and promote his own opinion. This is NOT how science works. This is not how constructive debate works. His site is offensive at least and dangerous at worst.

I agree, and notice this non-critical influence in the community – often.

What concerns me is the average demographic – many newcomers in the 16-19 age range.

I think durianrider makes some great points (eg. fruit makes you fat”, “fruit makes you a waif” which is it?). If you’ve seen any of his videos there’s some really interesting material. But the forum posts… cringe. Earn respect. In general, I’m really sick of seeing raw vegan celebrities blaming people for not taking the way of eating seriously, it couldn’t possibly be because their entire Internet presence is them hamming it up and making an ass of themselves.

For the record, 30BAD is not even durianrider’s website. It is Freelee’s. He just posts content there, and is romantically involved with the founder. So he has become an honorary leader through the process of personality cult.

I guess I just assumed it was his. But obviously, his fingerprints are all over it. His sticky, banana-soaked fingerprints…

True enough, it is NOT as simple as “fruit makes you fat.” It certainly can help make some people fat. For instance, if I have fruit in the morning (even if it’s eaten in addition to a good dose of fat and protein) I will be RAVENOUSLY hungry by 10 a.m. If I leave out the fruit, I can go until lunch no problem. But to say that fruit makes one overeat is silly because that may not happen to everyone. For some reason, fructose kills my control over my appetite. But that’s just me.

Right. Harley says it’s not the fruit’s fault if one is fat. It’s mixing fruit with fat and protein that makes it bad. He even claims that he knows high carbers who are nearly alcoholics, yet they don’t have “beer bellies,” even though their brains and livers may be fried from all that drinking, because, again, he blames beer bellies on the notion that beef is usually served with alcohol (again, mixing fat and carbs).

I have no doubt that the vast majority of people who follow 30BAD are good people who are just looking for help with their health. But, as my mother always said, it’s not always who you are, it’s who you hang out with that counts.

And I am grateful for the gracious, mature and constructive criticism you have given, based on what you have seen. The same goes for many comments from others here. It definitely helped me see the situation and the community with a more even light.

I know Richard your comments have helped many 30BADers look at the community in a more independent and critical way (and less like cult followers). This has encouraged a lot more personal confidence from members. You have done a great service.

hello everyone , as adriana requested . I’m going to post a progress report within the next couple of days . been busy cause I’ve been back on the grind at both the weight room and basketball. progress Is great and the fruit diet is history (stupidest diet I’ve ever done in my life ) . I’ll be around . will post pictures soon and a written summary of how I feel as I shifted my diet .

Harout, writing up a comprehensive before, during, and after story has the chance to be an incredibly influential resource for people considering changes in their nutrition like this. Heck, it could probably be made into a book. People need to know about what they can expect when they really try to do stuff like this.

Harout I agree with David. What if you write it up and we all blog about it (bloggers) , FB it and Retweet it so more folks can get away from the DR train and think for themselves? SO glad you are doing well. It is hard to hear of someone so young getting so ill when it is SO VERY easy to turn that around with good real food.
xo
deb

It’s been less than a day since i last posted. I had mentioned that i was going to post a progress report and a few pictures. It’s been a while since i kept active with any of the social networked DIET/FOOD websites and i just took some time off to really find myself in Hawaii and really understand what was needed of me. I’m sure we all know what its like to get out of a slump and sometimes just taking that first step forward is progression on its own. Anyways, i had promised it was going to be done this week but i couldn’t wait any longer and just wanted to get it out of the way. I put together a little video which i will attach the link for at the bottom of this post.

First and foremost, i would like to thank all of you bloggers/networkers for taking the time to send a message or email out to me and showing your concern. At first when i found out this blog “100% raw vegan success story ” was posted, i was like great, f*** my life. But to be honest, now i’m actually glad it happened. Cause all of you guys came knocking at my door and making me realize that i wasnt happy doing what i was doing. And if i continued any longer, it could have been a destruction to my present and future. So all of you that showed concern, thank you for it. All of you that talked down upon me, well, thank you to you too. You guys were my motivation when i took that step to the plate. I apologize for everything i ever said and any criticism i submitted to Richard. He is a great man, and i would like to say thank you to him for emailing me back (even though i havent gotten back to him yet). He didn’t have to, after the things i said to him and about him, but he did it out of the heart and that to me means more than anything. I can care less whatever diet anyone follows, whether i support it or not. In all honesty, you guys supported me more than my own “cult” did. That means something to me.

Moving on to my change in diet, i don’t mind sharing about it. I just don’t feel like doing so because i still have a few adjustments here and there that i am still experiencing with. However i would like to share that i am following more of a typical basketball nutrient profile. I consume about 2100 calories, ON AVERAGE, a day, following a nutrient ratio of 45 % carbs, 30 percent protein and 25% fat. I feel as if this criteria works best for me. Once i get a more stable menu i will share my foods and what i eat, when i eat it.

I definitely want to talk about performance though. Its amazing how food can hold back all the hard work you ever put or do put in the gym/basketball. It took me a while to figure that out and I am glad i did so. After i changed my diet, i found that my performance just drastically improved from even the first couple days! All i was hoping for when i changed my diet was to be able to play the way i used to play. Not only was i able to reach that goal, but i even exceeded it and do so every day ever since i started. My dreams of coming true are back in the picture. I know i kind of briefed up everything and there is definitely more to discuss, and i am open to any questions i missed out on . You guys can email me or respond on here , i will be keeping up with both. my email is [email protected]. I have school in the morning and thats why i have to cut it short but i did want to attach the video that i have put together from the gym earlier today and a few recent photos, two of which are from today.

My dreams are now in picture again, and i just signed with a management company called vursityle. I am planning on playing in eurpoe this winter after the season. I have a photoshoot this upcoming saturday in a studio and on sunday there is a game. Scouts from various countries will be here visiting all thanks to my management company. I just got active on my twitter again and using it as a promoting purpose. If you guys would be generous enough to follow me , i would appreciate it, i need all the support i can get. It’s okay if you don’t though, i definitely understand. Just trying my best to make it in the leagues and i need all i can get. My twitter is @musclemasso for those who will follow.
Thank you again for being there for all those who were. Wouldn’t have made it without you guys making me notice it was time to pick my self up.
Speak to you guys all soon.

(btw sorry for the first set of reverse bicep curls being cut off, i didnt know the measure of the camera, i put it on the floor in an inclined position. )

That’s fantastic news! Where in Europe will you be? That should be a great time. And even should you not make it in the leagues I have a feeling you’ll do well in whatever you choose. You’re very bright and articulate, I think you’ll go far.

For the most part, yes. I don’t eat grains, very low starch, very little fruit. I’m gluten intolerant and can’t digest fructose or most starches properly as they make me sick. I haven’t had Armenian food in a while but I imagine with all the fresh veg, meat and fish I would be fine with a lot of it. I cook with a lot of the same spices, sumac, cumin, mint and so on. I agree, Armenian, and a lot of foods from that area in general, is better than a lot of what’s here.

Harout, I am thrilled that you have turned things around and wish you luck with the game on Sunday. Good luck with the scouts. It sounds like you really have it together physically and mentally. I can tell this is just the start of great things for you.

We are pulling for you, consider yourself an adopted member of Free the Animal!

I still wonder why Cordain kind of looks kind of (soft). Fruit? fructose at his age/leptin/insulin hormones? Not enough fat? Anectdotally I think I lost abdominal fat with more starch, less fruit (exception blending wild blueberries with vegetables)

Harout, I just sent you an email. Our stories have much in common, as I was also featured by Richard here on his blog, back in the spring, as another Raw Vegan “Success” Story. I am so happy for you, to hear that you have found your way out of the insanity of such an extreme way of eating, and are once again enjoying success on the basketball court. I know when I came out of that insanity myself, I felt like a million bucks. Many people are rooting for you. XOXO Heather

very funny how when you start doing the right thing , hard work becomes passive and the efforts you used to put in seem effortless because of the results you are getting that make it easier and easier.

UPDATE:
Now that i see progressive results after another week has passed by, i do not look to change anything in my diet for quiet some time, what i am doing is working very well for me now and i enjoy doing it as well. I feel clean, lean, and in physical practice- MEAN.

do what you would do as if nobody was watching and still keep it in context to be able to feel good of yourself

keep freeing the animal and live life. will share my diet for anyone who asks, pretty stable with it now.
follow me on twitter @musclemasso or by clinking the hyperlink on my name , “Harout”, on the top of this post. My email address is [email protected].

I’d Love to hear from you guys , P.S. ….i think i can bench press double of Harley’s weight. just saying (:,

Not a sinner at all, people can do what they want, though I personally believe it is the most ethical way to eat so that is why I praise him (also because he seems to believe the same thing; he stuck to his heart and still got to eat his cake ;)), though I judge no one nor do I believe it is the only diet for health nor think it is the humans “original diet”, I believe many diets can be healthy, as yours seems to be for you

Hello Animals !
I’m a french reader, enthusiastic with the paleo wave (quite unknown in my country)
Harout’ story touched me a lot !
After following the raw-ligion, I launched in a fucking fruitarian path… for 6 months
Fortunately some clues allowed me to stand back and discover the Paleosphere, which is far from veganism on a major point (not to mention body thriving) : it’s very very flexible, open, from a mental standpoint
thank you

I was extremely obese at 286# 5’9” and went raw vegan for 24 days. I was noticably thiner and had energy for a change.Im sold on raw,and will not be moved by anything except my own personal experiance , as it was easy, and the way i felt spoke volumes.Glad to know something really works.

Yep, raw vegan diets are notorious for establishing a substantial caloric deficit, if you can stick to them.

Nothing magic. Eat the same number of calories in Span you’d loose the same wight (ang get more micronutrients). Care to guess about how much ‘raw vegan’ fare it takes to equal the vitamins and minerals in a mere 4 oz of beef liver? Try about 5 pounds.

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